Remembering a Mother Brought Into the Spotlight by Tragedy

July 5, 2006 — -- Nearly 10 years ago, 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey became a national obsession.

Her bound, strangled body was found in the basement of her Colorado home on the day after Christmas.

Last month, another tragedy struck the Ramsey family when Patsy Ramsey, JonBenet's mother, died at the age of 49 after a long battle with ovarian cancer.

She was buried next to her daughter in an Atlanta cemetery.

The family's attorney, Lin Wood, had been by Patsy and husband John Ramsey's side since 1999. He said the relationship was both personal and professional for him.

"I saw Patsy a couple of weeks before her death," he said to ABC News. "I had breakfast with her and John. She was tired. She was weak. She was frail. John talked at that time about options for treatment, but I had a real sense Patsy knew that after 13 years, she was going to lose the battle that she fought against the vicious disease of ovarian cancer."

"When I put her in the car and left that morning she looked over at me -- because we had been talking about the investigation -- and she said, 'Tell them to hurry up and find that guy.' Because, as Patsy would say, her words, 'I'm about to conk out.'"

A Baffling Case

The physical evidence in JonBenet's case baffled police.

There was a ransom note with handwriting yet to be matched to anyone; an open window in the basement where an intruder may have entered; and DNA from an unknown male on JonBenet's underwear.

This case is still not close to being solved.

"The mystery lives on because it is a classic whodunit," said Charlie Brennan, a reporter at The Rocky Mountain News.

"There really has been no outward sign that this case has been getting a lot of active investigation of late. … The DA will tell you there is, but from the outside there is very little evidence of that."

From the beginning, police focused their investigation on JonBenet's parents who maintained they had nothing to do with her killing.

"Let me assure you, I did not kill JonBenet," Patsy said when the investigation began. "I loved that child with the whole of my heart and soul."

Some say the Ramseys were tried in the media, but they were never tried in a court of law.

In 1999, a grand jury did not indict Patsy or John Ramsey. Wood said that six or seven libel lawsuits had been brought against various media outlets. All but one has been settled.

A Low Point

Ramsey, who was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1993, told Barbara Walters in a 2000 interview that she had reached her lowest point when her daughter had been killed and that nothing that happened in the media could make that worse.

"I have lost the most precious thing in the world to me -- I have lost my child, my little girl, JonBenet. I have gone as low as I could go," she said to Walters.

In 2003, a federal judge dismissed a reporter's libel suit against the couple, ruling that there was almost no evidence to show that one of the Ramseys had killed JonBenet.

Instead, the judge wrote there was "abundant evidence to support their belief that an intruder entered their home and killed their daughter."

Days later Boulder, Colo., District Attorney Mary Keenan said she agreed that "the weight of the evidence is more consistent with a theory that an intruder murdered JonBenet, than it is with a theory that Mrs. Ramsey did so."

That same year, the DNA from JonBenet's underwear was sent to the FBI national database, but no match was ever found.

"What is known is that the DNA is, in fact, that of a male. It is what would be referred to as foreign DNA -- that is to say, it is not Ramsey," Wood said. "It is most likely saliva. The database has shown nothing yet."

A Close Family

Through all the speculation and media intrigue, Wood said that the Ramseys had focused their efforts not only on the investigation, but also on raising their son, Burke, who is now 19 and in college.

At the beginning of the case, some had raised the possibility that he could have been involved in his sister's death.

"Burke Ramsey is a testament to the type of parenting, the love that John and Patsy Ramsey brought into their family," Wood said.

"I have always said if people wanted to look into whether Patsy Ramsey was capable of killing JonBenet, they ought to just simply look at the life she lived: a loving mother, a grandmother, a wonderful wife, and devoted and close friend to many people around the country."

"Good Morning America" anchor Diane Sawyer contributed to this report.