HUNDREDS of people are expected to turn out for the funeral of a Scottish businesswoman allegedly beaten to death by an ex-boyfriend in the United States.

Lindsay Brown was killed in her beachside apartment in Florida on Saturday night.

Her attacker struck her on the back of the head, apparently with a beer bottle, while she was talking on the phone to a friend. She was found in a pool of blood and pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

Police swooped quickly and arrested her former boyfriend, who has been charged with first degree murder and could now face the death penalty.

Michael Robert Everett, who had been dumped by Ms Brown because of his heavy drinking, was seen entering her apartment in Flagler Beach on Florida’s east coast shortly before the attack. The 36-year-old is now being held without bail in a local prison.

Lindsay’s parents flew out from Scotland yesterday and will join hundreds of mourners at a memorial service and funeral on Saturday.

Friends said Everett had been struggling to cope with the break-up and flipped when he saw Ms Brown walking hand in hand with a new boyfriend. Ms Brown, 39, from Sauchie, Stirlingshire, was vice-president of a tile and carpeting firm.

She arrived in the US seven years ago on a working visa. She had followed her boss, who sold his factories in Falkirk and Glasgow in the mid-1990s to set up a Florida operation.

Tommy Thomson, the owner of House of Tiles and Carpeting in nearby Bunnell, where Ms Brown was based, said the entire community had been stunned by the killing.

He said: “We still can’t believe this has happened. Lindsay was loved by everybody and she had the most wonderful nature.

“I haven’t stopped taking calls from people expressing their disbelief and asking for details of her memorial service. I don’t think there is anywhere big enough to hold everyone who wants to be there.”

Mr Thomson added: “The sickening thing is that she hardly went out with him for any length of time, just a few weeks at the most.

“At the beginning she said he was great, the perfect gentleman, but after the first or second week she noticed that he had a drink problem and she soon learned that he couldn’t hold a driving licence because he had so many convictions for drink-driving.

“They weren’t living together and it didn’t take long for Lindsay to read the warning signs and told him that she didn’t want to see him any more.

“That was a few months ago, and around the same time she started dating another guy, Leif Halvorsen, one of our customers, who also lived in the same town as Lindsay, and they really hit it off,” Mr Thomson said. “It’s a small town and when Everett saw them out and about together, he couldn’t handle it.”

He added: “Lindsay was like a daughter to me. Her life was her little Boston terrier, Fester.

“Leif, who had been with Lindsay for a few months, is now looking after the dog.

“Lindsay loved kayaking and she used to take Fester out on the intercoastal waterway with her. She was so much fun.”

Friends last night described Ms Brown as a beautiful person who was full of fun. A neighbour, Carla Cline, said: “She was just the sweetest person I had met in a long time. She had an amazing attitude. She loved to laugh.”

Anna Nicole Smith, the flamboyant American model and actor best known for her marriage to a billionaire six decades her senior, died last night after collapsing in a hotel room in Florida. The 39-year-old former Playboy playmate of the month was found unconscious by her private nurse at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel near Fort Lauderdale. Smith, who had a history of drug problems, was taken to the nearby Hollywood Memorial hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Seminole’s police chief, Charlie Tiger, said a bodyguard had tried in vain to resuscitate her with a heart massage. Sources told the cable TV entertainment network E! that Smith had been suffering from flu-like symptoms on her arrival at the hotel on Monday. On Wednesday, she apparently fell in the bathroom and hit her head but said she felt fine and went back to bed. Yesterday, the sources said, the nurse tried to wake her from a midday nap but found her unresponsive with her eyes dilated. A postmortem today is expected to determine the cause of death.

Smith had been staying at the hotel, owned by the native American Seminole tribe, with her new husband and lawyer, Howard K Stern, who claims to be the father of her six-month-old daughter, Dannielynn.

Another of Smith’s attorneys, Ronald Rale, told reporters: “It’s as shocking to me as to you guys. Howard, obviously, is speechless and grieving.”

He added: “Poor Anna Nicole. She’s been the underdog. She’s been besieged … and she’s been trying her best and nobody should have to endure what she’s endured.”

Smith was no stranger to lawsuits. At the time of her death she was involved in a paternity suit with photojournalist, Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend, although Mr Stern is listed on Dannielynn’s birth certificate as the father.

Mr Birkhead last night filed an emergency injunction to try to gain custody of the child, who is said to be in the Bahamas, where she was born.

Dannielynn’s birth was mixed with tragedy and mystery when Smith’s 20-year-old son Daniel died in her hospital room of an apparent drugs overdose three days after the birth last September.

Smith’s most high-profile court battle, however, was the feud with the family of her ex-husband, J Howard Marshall, over his multibillion dollar fortune. She met the oil baron in 1991 when she was working as a stripper in a Houston nightclub and they married three years later, when she was 26 and he was 89.

In an interview with ABC television two years ago, Smith recalled her first meeting with Marshall. “He had no will to live and I went over to see him,” she said. “He got a little twinkle in his eyes, and he asked me to dance for him. And I did.”

The marriage lasted 13 months before Marshall died, sparking a bitter fight with his family over the money. Smith said he promised her half of his fortune if she married him, and she was initially awarded $474m, a decision overturned when a Texas court decided Marshall’s son, E Pierce Marshall, was the sole heir.

In 2005, the case reached the supreme court, which ruled unanimously that she should be allowed to pursue her claim in a federal court. The issue was still outstanding at the time of her death.

Last night, the Marshall family released a statement saying: “[We were] shocked by the untimely death of Anna Nicole Smith. We wish to express our sympathies to her family in this difficult time.”

Hugh Hefner, Playboy’s founder, paid tribute to Smith, who he said was one of his magazine’s most popular playmates. “I’m very saddened to learn about Anna Nicole’s passing. She was a dear friend who meant a great deal to the Playboy family and to me personally,” he said.

Smith’s sister, Donna Hogan, also issued a statement. “We feel that the death of her son left her deeply saddened, a sadness she hid from everyone,” she said. “As a mother of three children I am anguished by this tragic event and the fact that her new baby, Dannielynn Hope, is now without a mother.”

Smith had acknowledged problems with drug addiction and checked into the Betty Ford Clinic for a spell in the mid-1990s. It is not known why a female nurse, who was privately employed, accompanied her during her holiday in Florida.

“The nurse in her room called the hospital operator at 1.38pm and we responded within minutes,” Mr Tiger said. “At 1.45pm, a bodyguard administered CPR.”

He said detectives from the Broward County crime laboratory were examining her hotel room, but that there was no indication of foul play.

Smith was staying in Florida with Mr Stern, whom she wed in a civil ceremony in the Bahamas after her daughter’s birth. The pair were reportedly looking to buy a boat together, but Mr Tiger said he could not speculate on the reason for their stay. “It’s a beautiful hotel and a lot of people come here to relax,” he said. “She was a frequent patron here.”

Backstory

Anna Nicole Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan and grew up in the Texas town of Mexia. The model and actress, who capitalised on her resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, won fame as the face of Guess jeans and was named Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Year in 1993. The following year, she appeared in The Hudsucker Proxy and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. She was most famous for her relationship with the oil billionaire, J Howard Marshall, whom she met dancing at a Houston strip club. Eyebrows were raised when the couple married in 1994. She was 26 and he was 89. He died the next year and Smith began a battle with his family over his estate, valued by Forbes.com at $1.6bn (810m). In May 2006 the US supreme court ruled that Smith could pursue her case in federal court. Her son, Daniel, 20, died in the Bahamas last year in what was believed to be a drug-related death.
Dan Bell

Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser and confidant Lord Levy was arrested for a second time yesterday on suspicion of perverting the course of justice over his role in the cash for honours affair.

The dramatic development suggests Lord Levy, who answers directly to the prime minister, is suspected of allegedly lying or withholding evidence from detectives as part of a coverup. Police are known to be following a trail of encrypted emails and electronic trails on computer hard drives as part of their 10-month inquiry.

Scotland Yard detectives, who are investigating whether money was donated to the Labour party in exchange for peerages, placed the peer under arrest when he went to a central London police station to answer bail yesterday.

Perverting the course of justice involves attempts to put obstacles in the way of police. It is considered an extremely serious offence by the courts. The maximum jail penalty is life although in practice no one has ever been jailed for more than 10 years in the last century.

A spokesman for Lord Levy said he “completely denies any allegations of wrongdoing whatsoever. Lord Levy went to the police station today as asked. He was interviewed again. He left the police station in the early afternoon and since there is a continuing investigation he will not make any further comments at this time.” The peer was released on bail last night pending further inquiries.

Government sources were also bullish about the development. As pressure mounted on No 10, senior ministers expressed anger and frustration about the length of the police investigation and a belief that it is time to put up or shut up.

A government source said: “This has now been going on a year and questions need to be asked whether there is or isn’t sufficient information.” Scotland Yard has, however, has repeatedly defended the integrity of its inquiry.

Downing Street refused to comment on Lord Levy’s re-arrest, but the development will heighten speculation that Mr Blair - who has already been questioned as a witness - may be seen again by detectives before they conclude their inquiry.

No 10 pointedly referred reporters back to Mr Blair’s defence of his friend and Middle East envoy on December 18 when the prime minister stated he had “performed an excellent job as my envoy in very difficult circumstances”. Lord Levy, 62, was first arrested in July last year and questioned under the Honours Act 1925 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Food tycoon Sir Gulam Noon, who was originally nominated for a peerage by Labour, has alleged to police that Lord Levy suggested he make a loan to the party in the runup to the 2005 general election and that it need not be disclosed.

Lord Levy was questioned again in September last year and denied any wrongdoing. His arrest yesterday came two weeks after senior No 10 aide Ruth Turner was arrested at her home in a dawn raid, also under suspicion of perverting the course of justice. John Yates, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, who is leading the inquiry, is using new US software which scans hard drives and flags up deleted email exchanges. .

Labour MP John McDonnell, who plans to stand for the Labour leadership, said last night: “Increasingly, the Labour party leadership appears to be in disarray over this issue. The police clearly have suspicions that all the relevant information is not being provided to them.”

Recent speculation that the police were interested in a handwritten note from Tony Blair has been denied by the prime minister’s official spokesman. Downing Street also denied a report that police were investigating the existence of a second computer system in No 10 which contained encrypted emails.