By rights she ought to have been contemplating a retirement full of honours, respect and gratitude. Instead, through the carelessness of government officials in her own country, she has been forced to endure a lonely, humiliating and undoubtedly painful death.

I have studied the investigation that has been going on in Los Angeles in detail and I have read the affidavits and search warrants that were filed by the US Inland Revenue agents who have been conducting this five-year investigation. It is my considered opinion that they have been on a very long, expensive and futile fishing expedition, pursuing a few slightly shady tax dodges while doing immense damage to the museum community as a whole.

Now that damage has reached Thailand. It is one of the tragic ironies of this scenario that the US Inland Revenue Service, while trying, quite hypocritically, to portray itself as the defender of Thai culture, has taken away the life and destroyed the career of one of the best friends this culture ever had.

Let’s hope that Dr. Brown’s death will not have been completely in vain, and that this ill-advised witch hunt will be called off.

I’ve not met Dr Brown myself, and it was a shock to hear her name implicated in this scandal, which was something you would not hear about someone with credentials such as hers. I think we have lost a highly respected scholar who has contributed a great deal to our understanding of Southeast Asian Archaeology.

The poor woman had more than her misfortune in life. Her nearly fatal accident happened in 1982, just outside the Dusit Thani Hotel where the Foreign Correspondents Club Thailand used to be located. She was leaving the Dusit Thani car park on her motorcycle, when she was stuck and knocked down by a tuk-tuk (motor samlor). Before she could get up, she was run over by a big semi! The wheels crushed her chest, puncturing a lung, and also damaged her legs so badly that one had to be removed. It was almost a miracle that she survived.

It took her many years to recover, which makes it so sad this had to happen.

Goodbye, Roxanna. You were a nice lady.