New Details Surface in McCartney's Death

While press reports worldwide gave Santa Barbara, CA, as the place of Linda McCartney's death from cancer last Friday, next week's PEOPLE Magazine reveals that it is now believed the 56-year-old photographer and wife of ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney died in Tucson, AZ, at the family's 150-acre ranch. Writes PEOPLE's Alex Tresniowski in the magazine's cover story: "An official in the Santa Barbara County coroner's office said 'there has been no death certificate filed,' and a source close to the family told PEOPLE that McCartney in fact died in Tucson." After her passing, reports PEOPLE, "her remains were cremated, and, with only close family present, scattered on the lush grounds of the family farmhouse in Sussex, England."

In other details of McCartney's life and death, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono tells PEOPLE that she and Linda "used to chat about our children on the phone. Linda was very protective of them." The McCartneys had four children: Heather, 35 (from Linda's early first marriage, to fellow University of Arizona student Joseph Melville See), Mary, 27, Stella, 26, and James, 20. Recalls See, 60, now a retired geologist: "Linda stood out. I idolized her presence, her being."

As for how Paul is coping, the couple's friend, Edward Sexton, says, "The poor man. Paul loved Linda more than life." Linda's friend, TV writer Carla Lane, spoke with Paul shortly after his wife died. She says: "He's being very spiritual about her death. He feels she is still around. She was his life. I just hope he can cope when it really hits him."