'FOR THE ADVENTURE'

The Case Of Sam Lindsay-Brown:

Father of former Nelson resident who killed himself after being
busted for flying chopper full of pot into the U.S. says his son was
a spirited risk taker.

In what would be his last words to anyone before his suicide, Sam
Lindsay-Brown said he did it all for the adventure.

The 24-year-old former Nelson resident and much-beloved member of the
local mountain biking community got busted by the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency in a sting after flying a chopper allegedly loaded
with about 200 kilograms of marijuana from Sicamous across the border
in the dark of night, fog and pelting rain three weeks ago.

The DEA agents waiting for him were amazed Lindsay-Brown even managed
to make it through the mountains to Colville National Forest in the
large Bell 206 helicopter that night.

Five days after he was arrested, Lindsay-Brown was found hanging from
a noose made out of his bed sheet and jammed into a light fixture in
an isolated cell at the Spokane County Jail.

Lindsay-Brown's arrest and subsequent death is just one chapter in
what turned out to be the bust of a large cross-border marijuana
smuggling operation - from which three helicopters and 700 kilograms
of marijuana have recently been seized along with several arrests.

The RCMP and U.S. authorities have kept a tight lid on the facts
surrounding this case so far.

But Lou Brown, Sam's father feels his son was little more than a pawn
in someone else's game.

"It boils down to him getting exploited by some outfit, or some deal
to use his skill to transport weed across the border," Brown said.

Brown said his son was close to getting his pilot's license and had a
business plan in motion to start a backcountry helicopter business.

"He just got sucked up into somebody's trip and got caught," he said.
"He took the fall for somebody else, that's for sure.

"It's pretty exciting for a kid that age. It's almost an honour to
be asked to do something like that. And he was a daredevil."

And in light of his approach to his chosen sport, it's clear taking
risks was nothing strange to Sam Lindsay-Brown.

From a young age Lindsay-Brown was an avid mountain biker - a sport
introduced to him by his father.

"We lived in a very remote place in New Zealand," Lou Brown
said. "It was bikes from a very early age and I was into it
myself. I kept up with (Sam) until he was about 13 or 14 and then he
just surpassed me. He had brilliant balance and daredevil skills."

Lindsay-Brown came to the Nelson area as a teenager to attend school
and got deeply involved in the mountain biking scene in this area.

He burst into the public eye in Freeride Entertainment's film New
World Disorder 3: Freewheel Burning, where Brown's fearlessness and
skill on a bike were first showcased.

"In our third movie, he had one of the most spectacular and
mind-boggling segments," said Chris Lawrence of the Nelson-based
Freeride Entertainment.

Lawrence added that Lindsay-Brown was also responsible for building
many of the trails and stunts that now line the hillsides of the Nelson area.

"He was quite a builder," Lawrence said. "He was one of the most
prolific builders we ever had involved with our movies."

Lindsay-Brown's most famous creation was the "Disconstructed Wheel,"
a hamster wheel-like feature that few people other than him were even
able to ride.

"I'm pretty sure he was the only guy that was able to ride it,"
Lawrence said. "To be able to think it up, build it and then ride it
was an amazing feat in itself.

"To be that kind of mountain biker you have to have a certain
mindset. You have to be confident and you have to have a risk factor involved."

Lawrence said the news that of Lindsay-Brown's death and his
involvement in the marijuana trade came as quite a surprise.

"It was really shocking, because he was moving forward in his
not-so-clandestine, illegal manoeuvres - trying to get his pilot's
license and start a business," he said.

But Lou Brown said his son's decision to fly a chopper full of
marijuana across the border did not take him by surprise at all.

"I would expect it from him," Brown said. "When you're that age
you're immortal. Your own life doesn't really mean anything. You
don't realize what it's going to do to everyone else.

"The public defender who spoke with him (in Spokane) asked him why he
did it. He said 'for the adventure.'"

The one part of the story Brown doesn't buy is the notion that his
son committed suicide.

"There's a remote chance of that if they had threatened someone he
loved," he said. "That theory is fairly high on the list. They either
held somebody he loved or he thought he could sacrifice himself. He
was a very selfless person.

"I honestly believe it was a hit from the inside, but we don't know.
You kind of read between the lines and it's dirty."

Brown drove to Spokane to pick up his son's remains and said the all
the dealings around that endeavour were questionable.

"When we went down there, everyone who had anything to do with the
case had been relocated to El Paso, Texas," he noted. "We were
talking to people who had nothing to do with it.

"When we picked up his remains, they had done a very extensive
autopsy and basically removed all the evidence they wanted. The
funeral directors there said they hadn't seen an autopsy that
extensive for years."

Brown said there are still many unanswered questions surrounding his
son's death, and they will likely stay that way due to the lack of
information coming from U.S. authorities.

"It's easier to live with a question in your mind than a further
event that they may put a stop to any further inquiries," he
said. "We're kind of stalemated there. We'll probably just have to
live with it. It will probably be the work of another TV show or something."

Lou Brown and about 30 of Sam Lindsay-Brown's friends helped build
his casket with Sam's own tools and wood.

Decorated with mountain bike art, adorned with an elk skull and rack,
and equipped with handlebars for carrying, friends and family set the
coffin bearing Lindsay-Brown's remains to rest in the Crawford Bay
cemetery next to his grandmother.

"There was a lot of people there and probably 80 per cent of them
were mountain bikers," Brown said of the funeral.

"The whole program for the body recovery, funeral and service came
through with different aspects of his life.

"He was such a character that things just came up. We basically fell
into this program...It went down very much in Sam style."