NEW YORK -- Martha Mitchell, estranged wife of former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, died today of complications from bone cancer with no member of her family at her bedside. She was 57.
A spokesman at the Memorial Sloane Kettering hospital said Mrs. Mitchell, who had been undergoing cancer therapy since January, died in the intensive care unit at 4:30 a.m. today.
"No family was with her," said Walter Anderson, assistant director of public relations for the hospital. He said her hospital physician, Dr. Karl Mayer, was at her side.
Specifically, Mrs. Mitchell died "of multiple myeloma," a rare form of cancer of the bone marrow.
Mrs. Mitchell, whose fortunes began to decline with the separation from her husband in the early days of the Watergate scandal, had been ailing for many months.
She was taken at 10 a.m. Sunday from her Fifth Avenue apartment to the hospital which specializes in cancer diseases.
Dr. Mayer said soon after Mrs. Mitchell's admission Sunday that she was "very gravely ill and anything can happen at any time."
Mayer said Mitchell was notified of her hospitalization. But he was not reported to be at the hospital.
Mrs. Mitchell has a 14-year-old daughter, Marty, in her estranged husband's custody and a son from a previous marriage, Jay Jennings.
In recent months, Mrs. Mitchell received chemotherapy treatments and had been "doing quite well" at home where she was attended by two nurses, Mayer said.
But during the weekend "there were complications from her disease." Medical authorities indicated the complications involved internal bleeding.
