Ron Martin said after getting breast cancer, Debbie Martin had her ovaries removed preventively because she was also at very high genetic risk for ovarian cancer, which has killed several women in her family.

NPR: Jolie Aunt Dies Of Breast Cancer Days After Op-Ed

Debbie Martin died at age 61 at a hospital in Escondido, Calif.

NPR: Jolie Aunt Dies Of Breast Cancer Days After Op-Ed

According to her husband, Debbie Martin had the same defective BRCA1 gene that Jolie does, but didn't know it until after her 2004 cancer diagnosis.

NPR: Jolie Aunt Dies Of Breast Cancer Days After Op-Ed

Debbie Martin's death was first reported by E!

NPR: Jolie Aunt Dies Of Breast Cancer Days After Op-Ed

Debbie Martin was the younger sister of Jolie's mother, Marcheline Bertrand, whose own death from ovarian cancer in 2007 inspired the surgery that Jolie described in a May 14 op-ed in the New York Times.

NPR: Jolie Aunt Dies Of Breast Cancer Days After Op-Ed

Barrett, meanwhile, got his own high-powered support from former President Bill Clinton, as well as Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.

CNN: Wisconsin recall campaign winds up