Bobby Fischer's Body to Be Exhumed in Paternity Case

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Terence Neilan Contributor

AOL News

(June 17) -- The body of iconic chess champion Bobby Fischer has been ordered exhumed from his grave in Iceland in the hopes of settling a paternity case brought by a former lover.

Iceland's Supreme Court said today that three tissue samples were required to determine whether he was the father of 9-year-old Jinky Young, a Philippines-born girl whose mother has filed a claim on Fischer's estate.

The ruling overturned an earlier municipal court decision denying the request by the girl's mother, Marilyn Young, saying exhumation was "unavoidable," Reuters reported.

John Lent, AP

The remains of chess genius Bobby Fischer, shown here in a 1962, are to be exhumed to determine whether he is the father of a 9-year-old girl, a lawyer representing the child and her mother said Thursday.

But even if the finding favors Young, she still faces a battle over Fischer's estate, which is estimated to be worth $2 million and is subject to competing claims. Miyoko Watai, the head of the Japanese Chess Association, says she legally married Fischer in 2004, and two of the Chicago-born champion's nephews say they are entitled to the money.

In addition, the U.S. government is also claiming payment of unpaid taxes, Agence France-Press reported.

The reclusive Fischer, who reportedly left no will, became the only American world chess champion in 1972 by defeating the Soviet Union's grand master Boris Spassky.

He became a fugitive from justice in the U.S. in 1992 after he violated sanctions against Yugoslavia by accepting a $3.3 million fee to play an exhibition game there.

After dropping out of sight and living in Budapest, the Philippines and Switzerland, he was arrested and held for months in Japan for what Tokyo said was an attempt to fly to Manila without a valid passport.

It was then that Iceland, which regarded Fischer as a national hero for his victory over Spassky in Reykjavik, came to his rescue.

Because it saw his win as a triumph for democracy over communism, Iceland made Fischer a citizen, and he moved there from Japan in 2005 to avoid being deported to the U.S.

Fischer, who died Jan. 17, 2008, at the age of 64, was buried in a church cemetery south of the Icelandic capital.

Although seen by many as one of the world's greatest-ever chess players, Fischer refused to defend his title and relinquished it to the Soviet champion Anatoly Karpov in 1975.

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Everybody wants a piece of the pie...

I was surprised to hear that his estate had over $2M in it.  I thought he had pretty much blown all his money one way or another.

Just goes to show you that chess players are sometimes highly eccentric, can't deal with the real world well. Fischer, a genius on the board,  failed at life.  

I dunno... does your estate have over $2M ??  Define "failed at life".

I'm surprised he has a 2 million estate left over.  He made about 5 mil from that "illegal" match with Spassky in 1992, but that was a long time ago.  If the US government ever gets their hands on his estate to pay his back taxes, penalties, fines etc there won't be anything left.

As far having "failed at life", I would say that he succeeded financially and at his craft, but he was a failure as a human being: he was a narcissistic, hate-filled sociopath.

I agree with Dr. Strange Luft.   I wonder what drove him to his mental illness.  I do not think it was chess.   He was exceptional as a prodigy he continued to dominate after he was young.  Few prodigies actually succeed as adults.  Read some article about that in the NY Times. 

I agree that chess was not the cause of his mental illness, it merely gave him the fame that allowed the world to focus on it.  It reminds me of the movement years ago to ban games like Dungeons and Dragons because of behavioral problems of some of the children that played it. It was not the game that was to blame: it was played innocently enough by millions of normal people.  The game was just a stage for acting out their problems that were festering under the surface.

I don't know if I used the word "sociopath" correctly.  I merely meant that he was paranoid and not well adjusted socially, not that he was dangerous to others. We will probably never know what caused it.  Perhaps it was a chemical imbalance or traumatic childhood experiences. 

Fischer was not just eccentric, but turned into a serious bigot.  

Wasn't he always a bigot?!

Who knows?  He became increasingly disconnected from reality. I wonder if any biographer took a look at his mental health decline. 

Of course chess doesn't have magical powers to cause mental illness, mental illness is genetic, but where did you the idea that most prodigies don't succeed as adults? 

Mental illness is genentic??  lol  Now I have heard it all!

Perhaps there is a tendancy to succumb to it that is genetic, but I would hardly say that mental illness itself is genetic!

It's a comprehensive theory IMO. Some mental ilnesses like OCD are told to be caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. I personally don't agree, but many specialists say that. And there have been identifyed genes that can cause that. (Not sure where I read that). 

But I think that "Perhaps there is a tendancy to succumb to it that is genetic, but I would hardly say that mental illness itself is genetic!" is more spot on, but who knows? 

Ps: bobby's father is told to have the same kind of bizarre behaiviours as bobby did. Now that's some food for tought! I'm not sure where I read that too. 

It is. 

Since you're not sure where you read anything, I'm not sure I'm reading your posts. Maybe our Moms had "I'm not sure your the father" disease?

There's some fun sentence structure in the article. For example:

"The remains of chess genius Bobby Fischer, shown here in a 1962..."

Maybe we can combine this thread with others like:

"Do you believe in life after death?"

"BIggest what-if about Bobby."

It's a little more complex than genes --> mental disorder, although it can be that simple.  Think genes x environment --> mental disorder (or not mental disorder).  And you can think about environment in two ways here. (1) The ways in which society defines mental illness and (2) the specific things one is exposed to, both social and non-social.