Is fulfilling last wish of O.C. man a Mission Impossible? ...Middle East

Hello? Thai government? U.S. government? Trying to get help with a righteous task here…

Anybody home?

More than four months ago, we told you about the travails of Trevor Murphy, a fiduciary in Laguna Beach who was trying to fulfill the last wish of one of his clients. The late gent, an Orange County man who served in Vietnam and became fascinated with archaeology, amassed a not-inconsequential collection of antiquities and asked that upon his death those items be repatriated back to their home country, Thailand.

The items are curious.

There’s a bronze bangle that’s thousands of years old and still contains bone from the arm it once rested on.

There are dozens of clay pots and finely painted vases, beads of stone and glass, bronze bells and rattles and bracelets and necklaces; even a mold to make metal axe heads (a skill some archaeologists argue didn’t exist in Thailand 3,500 years ago).

“Chai Dwahat Antiques,” one of the original receipts says. “All Ban Chiang. 17 pieces….All guarantee 4,500-5,600 years old. 4th March, 1972.” Total cost: $400.

The educational, scientific and cultural branch of the United Nations — known as UNESCO — considers Ban Chiang to be the most important prehistoric settlement ever discovered in Southeast Asia. There are some 50 pieces in this collection, and for decades they were lovingly displayed behind glass in the man’s Orange County home.

Murphy, as part of his job handling the man’s estate, has been trying to get them back to Thailand for months. The task seems like it should be simple enough, but it most definitely is not.

The effort to send the antiquities back to Thailand began last year. Murphy thought it might be as simple as contacting Thai officials and handing them over. Ha! He started with the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington. Then tried university academics specializing in antiquities repatriation.

Then he tried the Thai consulate in Los Angeles. “The Royal Thai Consulate-General in Los Angeles does not have a policy of receiving antiquities as gifts directly from donors,” the consulate told Murphy via email. The consulate told him to work through the U.S. Homeland Security Investigation department instead.

So, he did. In July, Murphy spent more than an hour waiting on hold to contact the tip line for Homeland Security.  Eventually, the Muzak was interrupted by a human.

“I’m very glad you called,” the agent told Murphy. He then said he would alert the local office that handles these types of cases. “That will happen very quickly,” he promised. After that, Murphy was told, experts would examine the collection and figure out what’s next.

It felt like a great step forward. And we were super jazzed when the “Acting Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations, Orange County” reached out to this scribe the very day our story published, thanking us for bringing this important situation to his attention. “I am happy to work directly with the Laguna Beach fiduciary in getting these items returned back to Thailand,” the acting assistant special agent in charge said.

Except, since then, nothing much has happened.

We’ve checked in regularly; the O.C. office was working with the International Affairs office in Washington D.C. to set up the “handshake” with the Thai government. But “this process tends to move very slowly,” we were told.

Indeed. The day after Christmas, the acting assistant special agent in charge apologized for the lack of progress and said he was retiring from government service.

He put us in touch with a different agent from the agency’s HQ: “Hopefully, he will be able to assist you and Trevor in getting this resolved,” he said.

We’ve reached out again to Thai officials in Los Angeles. And to Homeland Security Investigations in D.C. Murphy longs to just hand everything over to the Thai government and fulfill his moral obligation and fiduciary duty to get this stuff home.

“It’s disappointing,” said Murphy, who we’ve known for years, with classic understatement.

“At this point, I’m very willing to to transport the relics myself to Thailand,” he added.

“But I would need diplomatic cover in case I did encounter any customs agents, even if it’s just a diplomatic letter from the Thai consulate or some sort of letter from Homeland Security. I have a master’s in foreign service from Georgetown, and I know that without that (letter) I could create, let’s call it, an ‘international misunderstanding.’ “

He figures getting such a letter seems easier than having two governments agree on a boots-on-the-ground authenticator and arranging a hand-off. But he’s also reaching out to non-governmental organizations in Thailand for ideas.

It shouldn’t be this hard to fulfill a dying man’s wish! Is a little help here really so much to ask?

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