DNA Solves Bobby Fischer Paternity Case
Well that settles it. It turns out that Jewish chess-champ-turned-rambling anti-Semite Bobby Fischer is not the father of a 9-year-old Filipino girl, Jinky Young, whose mother claimed to have been impregnated by Fischer.
As we reported in June, four parties, including young Jinky, were caught in a legal battle over Fischer’s $2 million estate following the chess champ’s death in 2008 from kidney failure. The other claimants included a Japanese chess official named Miyoko Watai, who says she was married to Fischer in 2004; Fischer’s two American nephews, Alexander and Nicholas Targ, and the American government, which claims Fischer’s money in compensation for unpaid taxes.
To settle the matter, the Supreme Court of Iceland — where Fischer spent his final days — decided to exhume Fischer’s corpse for DNA testing. According to Icelandic law, if the girl was indeed his daughter, she’d be entitled to two-third of his estate.
But it turned out that Fischer was not the father, as reported in a BBC article yesterday. “The DNA report excluded Bobby Fischer from being the father of Jinky Young, and therefore the case has come to a close,” lawyer Thordur Bogason was quoted saying in the article.
With three claimants remaining, the court case over the inheritance is still before an Icelandic court. Proceedings will continue next month, according to the article.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
