In Passing
Roswell, Ga.
Patsy Ramsey, JonBenet’s mother
Patsy Ramsey, who with her husband became suspects in the sensational 1996 murder of their daughter, JonBenet, has died. She was 49.
Ramsey, who had been battling a recurrence of ovarian cancer, died Saturday at her father’s home in Roswell, Ga., according to her attorney, L. Lin Wood. Her husband John was at her side.
JonBenet, a 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant, was found strangled and bludgeoned in the basement of the family’s home in an upscale neighborhood of Boulder, Colo., the day after Christmas 1996.
The murder remains unsolved, and no arrests were ever made in the case that captivated the nation.
“Anyone who knows this family hoped that they would solve the murder case while she was still alive,” Wood told the Boulder Daily Camera on Saturday.
But the Ramseys remained under what Boulder police called “an umbrella of suspicion” and at the center of a media storm of speculation. They vigorously defended themselves against accusations that they were involved in their daughter’s death and steadfastly maintained that an intruder committed the crime.
Starting with a story that broke during a slack holiday news cycle and continued for years, the media seized on every minute bit of information linked to the case. National headlines, in both tabloid and mainstream media, fed to a ravenous public familiar images of the child, dolled up in lipstick, eye makeup and beauty pageant costumes.
The Ramseys wrote about the intense scrutiny they endured in their 2000 book “The Death of Innocence.”
Patsy Ramsey’s survivors include her husband, son Burke – now 19 and cleared long ago in JonBenet’s death – and father Donald Paugh.
Dallas
E. Pierce Marshall, oil heir
E. Pierce Marshall, who feuded for years with former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith over his father’s oil fortune, has died, his spokesman said Friday. He was 67.
Marshall died unexpectedly on Tuesday in the Dallas area from a brief and extremely aggressive infection, the family said in a written statement released through spokesman David Margulies.
Smith married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89. He died the following year. Since then, E. Pierce Marshall had been locked in a legal battle over her entitlement to the estate.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month revived Smith’s pursuit of her late husband’s oil fortune, ruling that the one-time stripper deserves another day in court.
The case has had twists and turns. Smith won a $474 million judgment, which was cut to about $89 million and eventually reduced to zero.
“It’s a horrible situation, so condolences to the family, but we have no comment on it at this time,” said Philip Boesch, Smith’s attorney.
San Francisco
Dee Denton, college leader
Dee Denton, the controversial chancellor of the University of California Santa Cruz, fell to her death Saturday from the 44th floor of a San Francisco apartment building, the medical examiner’s office confirmed. Her death is being investigated as a suicide, officials said.
She was 46.
San Francisco police said her body was reported at 8:17 a.m. outside the Paramount apartments – where her partner, Gretchen Kalonji, lives. The luxury rentals are billed as the “tallest apartment for rent in San Francisco” and are located across from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Her tenure as chancellor was a rocky one. The openly gay leader was criticized for having the university foot the bill for $600,000 in renovations to her campus home, including a $30,000 enclosure for her dogs, a new dishwasher, sub-zero refrigerator, and updated bathroom. She also outraged university union members when her partner was hired to work for the UC system at a six-figure salary.
Denton was noticeably absent from the university commencement exercises earlier this month, and some employees said she had not been at work for at least two weeks. When asked about her absence, university officials told them she was ill.
Denton was appointed by the UC Regents as the ninth chancellor of UCSC, and assumed office on Feb. 14, 2005. She also was a professor of electrical engineering.