Patsy Ramsey Dies Of Cancer

(CBS/AP)  Patsy Ramsey, the mother of JonBenet, died early Saturday morning CBS News has learned from a source close to the family.

The 49-year-old died from complications from cancer in Atlanta, Georgia.

"I think people will remember Patsy as some one who was falsely accused in connection with the death of her daughter," Lin Wood, the Ramsey's attorney, said on CNN, "when she should be remembered for being an incredibly loving mother, a wonderful wife and a person who showed great courage in fighting a vicious disease."

Wood said Ramsey had been battling cancer since 1993 and had suffered a recurrence three years ago. Her husband, John, was with her at the time of her death.

Patsy Ramsey is the one who made the 911 call on December 26, 1996, telling police that her daughter was missing. "There's a note left and our daughter's gone," she said breathlessly.

Ramsey said she found a ransom note on the back staircase of the family's home demanding $118,000 for the safe return of JonBenet.

Boulder police responded immediately to Ramsey's call for help, and what first looked like a kidnapping quickly became a murder investigation, when JonBenet's body was found by her father in a small storage room in the basement of her house.

An autopsy concluded JonBenet suffered a skull fracture, and was strangled and beaten.

Because of the bizarre ransom note, and the fact that JonBenet was killed in her own home, detectives focused on her parents, John and Patsy, as their prime suspects.

Boulder police brushed aside many of the leads that came in, and dismissed the possibility that an intruder had somehow slipped inside the house and committed the murder.

The police chief said the parents were "under an umbrella of suspicion," but a grand jury did not indict the couple for murder.

Throughout lengthy and sometimes hostile police interrogations, both in 1998 and 2000, the Ramseys maintained their innocence. A 2005 48 Hours report found that DNA evidence ruled out the parents as suspects and investigators were no longer focusing on the Ramsey family.

The couple wrote a book, "The Death of Innocence," which was published in 2000.

They later left Colorado and had residences in Atlanta and in Michigan, where John Ramsey unsuccessfully ran for a state House seat in 2004. The Ramseys discussed their daughter's death during the campaign.

"We can't just hold our breath and hope the killer will be found and then go on with our lives," Patsy Ramsey said in 2004. "We have to move ahead now. We can't let evil win."

No one has been charged in the death of JonBenet Ramsey.