# How Did Martha Siegel Die?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-martha-siegel-die/135980
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 9, 2002, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-martha-siegel-die/135980 "2002-11-09T03:34:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@lucwarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucwarm)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2002, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-martha-siegel-die/135980/1 "2002-11-09T03:34:40Z")
Ok, so I’m suffering from morbid curiousity. Does anyone happen to know? (Of course I am referring to Siegel of Cantor & Siegel infamy).
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2002, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-martha-siegel-die/135980/2 "2002-11-09T22:46:07Z")
Not meaning to sound like a smartass, but–what makes you think she’s dead? Looks to me like her 15 minutes was up and she went away. Google is giving me nothin’ newer than about 1998.
[http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html#2.6](http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html#2.6)
> [@](#):
>
> Who were Canter and Siegel?
>
> They were lawyers, authors, and Usenet newbies _par excellence_…
>
> …C+S weren’t the first spammers, but they were so gothically clumsy about it, and so intent on making a buck, that people were terrified and infuriated into starting alt.current-events.net-abuse (which has since been replaced by the news.admin.net-abuse.\* groups.
>
> Since then, they’ve parted ways (rumour has it they were married when they spammed, and have since gotten a divorce.) Lawrence Canter was permanently disbarred, in part because of his history of net abuse. Martha Siegel was last heard from a few years ago, when she was trying to go on a lecture tour promoting her new, revised version of the book she and Canter wrote together on how to abuse the net.
From 1994.
[http://www.urbanlegends.com/legal/canter\_and\_seigel\_interview.html](http://www.urbanlegends.com/legal/canter_and_seigel_interview.html)
I even tried spelling it both ways, “Siegel” and “Seigel” and “Canter” and “Cantor”. No dice.
So?
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### Author:  [@lucwarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucwarm)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2002, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-martha-siegel-die/135980/3 "2002-11-10T12:17:30Z")
Well, I heard it somewhere so It Must Be True.
But right now I did a google search and found this:
> [@](#):
>
> Much has changed since then. The spamming duo, who wrote a book, “How to Make a Fortune on the Internet Superhighway,” divorced in 1996, and Siegel died in 2000. Canter was disbarred from practicing law by the Supreme Court of Tennessee in 1997, partly because of his e-mail advertising campaign.
[http://news.com.com/2008-1082-868483.html](http://news.com.com/2008-1082-868483.html)
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2002, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-martha-siegel-die/135980/4 "2002-11-11T05:38:26Z")
Well, then, you’re one factoid up on me. 😃
Absolutely no clue how she died, but I did check Snopes, before, and they weren’t there, and there aren’t a bunch of conspiracy theory websites about her, so it must’ve been completely normal.
So to speak…
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### Author:  [@Pueblo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pueblo)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2003, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-martha-siegel-die/135980/5 "2003-09-08T20:21:14Z")
I was also wondering what did her in. I had the misfortune of working for her and Cantor in the beginning of their infamous “immigration spamming” days in Phoenix, AZ. One thing is probable: Seigel died alone and miserable. Besides being the worse half of a duo of crooks who took advatage of and ripped of countless foreigners trying to obtain Visas to the U.S. (and not just via their “greencard spam”), Siegel was an absolutely evil individual. We can all rest in peace now—
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### Author:  [@Rick\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_P)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2015, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-martha-siegel-die/135980/6 "2015-02-24T08:07:03Z")
I spent time with Martha throughout 1999 as she attempted to begin an internet clothing business that she intended to name I-Fashion. I know she was under great financial stress, relying on a member of her family for support. She was being forced to sell her home, a condominium in Scottsdale. She was healthy, but appeared to be under great emotional distress and did not seem to have close friends. I lost contact with her at the start of the year 2000, but fear that her passing later that year might well be a culmination of those pressures.