Can't help but ask the really obvious question.....
Have you tried calling her??

This is a common scam usually perpetrated by the same Nigerians who will write telling you stories such as that they are the lawyer for a murdered prince and want to send you a million dollars to hold for them if only you will send them your banking information as a sign of trust. They somehow get the email addresses of a person and that person's address book. (probably by deploying a virus) Then they write everyone in the address book pretending to be their friend who has experienced a financial calamity while vacationing abroad and beg the friends to send a few thousand dollars to rescue them.

I know because this happened to one of my friends.
Serifima was not responsible. Her identity was stolen by the Nigerians.
She was an unknowing victim of identity theft.

Here are some links that describe the scam:
http://www.rentalbeast.com/blog/2010/04/12/friend-got-mugged-needs-money-in-uk-scam/

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/stranded-scam.shtml

and your email address was in her address book. On two occasions in the past year, I have had similar messages asking to wire funds after supposed muggings and/or robberies that seemed to be from friends of mine when their Hotmail accounts were hacked.  I am sure it is happening to Yahoo and Gmail accounts as well.