“Rest in Peace” it said in Old Norse Icelandic.
Within a few weeks daily buses began to arrive from Reykjavik—sometimes two or three a day—filled with the gaping tourists that Bobby had so desperately wanted to avoid. The grave, now with a two-foot-high plain marble stone, had become one of Iceland’s sightseeing attractions.
At the time of his death, Bobby Fischer’s estate was worth more than $2 million, primarily the prize money left over from the $3.5 million that he’d won in his 1992 match with Spassky. Yet Fischer, the man who’d tried so hard to control things on and off the chessboard, never wrote a will. Perhaps he thought he could control his illness and didn’t believe that he was dying until he was too ill to think about legal documents. Or perhaps, in some odd way, it amused him to realize that his money would become a major cause of contention, that it would initiate a baroque chess match in which each of the estate’s possible recipients took a turn at the board to gain a stronger position.
There were four people claiming to be Bobby’s true heir: Miyoko Watai, who lived with Bobby and contended that she was his wife; Nicholas and Alexander Targ, Bobby’s nephews (the two sons of Bobby’s late sister, Joan); and Jinky Young, who claimed to be Bobby’s daughter. All filed papers in Iceland, and were waiting for the court to sort out their respective petitions. The U.S. government also entered the fray in the hopes of gaining twenty years of back taxes owed by Bobby.
According to Icelandic law, a wife receives 100 percent of her husband’s estate if there are no children and only one-third if there is one child or more. However, the Icelandic court questioned the Japanese marriage certificate that Miyoko presented because it was only a photocopy, and she had difficulty proving that she was in fact Bobby’s legal wife.
The claim of the Targ brothers was clear: They are indeed his nephews. Now grown men—one a doctor and the other an attorney—both live in California. They were fully aware that they could only inherit their uncle’s fortune if “closer” relatives—such as a wife or child—are proven not to be rightful heirs. It behooved them, therefore, to try to determine the legitimacy of the other claims.
Finally, there was Jinky. Eight years old at the time of Bobby’s death, the girl was supported financially by Bobby all of her life. Icelandic friends said that Fischer was kind to the little girl, played with her, and bought her presents while she was in Iceland. Surprisingly, though, during the three years that Bobby lived in Iceland, Jinky and Marilyn visited him in Reykjavik only once, remaining there for about a month, in a separate apartment.
Then, a year and a half after Bobby’s death, Marilyn and Jinky traveled to Iceland again, this time to file a claim to his estate. With Eugene Torre’s assistance, an Icelandic lawyer—Thordur Bogason—was hired to represent the child, and soon after the attorney petitioned the court for a DNA test in an attempt to prove Bobby’s paternity. Getting a sample of Jinky’s DNA was simple: Doctors just took a small vial of blood. Retrieving a sample from Bobby, however, was decidedly more problematic. The National Hospital of Iceland, where Bobby died of renal failure, hadn’t saved any of his blood. His belongings were still in his apartment in Reykjavik, but who could prove whether a hair taken from a hairbrush really came from Bobby? The only foolproof way to secure Bobby’s DNA was to take a sample from Bobby’s body. That would settle the matter, everyone believed. In the United States the FBI, which often has to extract DNA in criminal cases, considers the DNA test, when done with the latest technology, infallible.
Exhuming Bobby’s corpse was impractical for many months: His grave was covered with snow, and it was difficult to dig through Iceland’s frozen soil until late spring. Until that time, arguments for and against exhumation were debated through the lower courts, and were finally settled by the Icelandic Supreme Court: It ruled that Jinky had the right to know whether Bobby was or was not her father.
At about three a.m. on July 5, 2010, the grave of Bobby Fischer was opened by a team of experts from the Reykjavik Official Cemeteries Department. The unusual time of morning to perform the exhumation was selected to thwart possible newsmen and curiosity-seekers from ogling the corpse and possibly taking photographs. After removing the dirt down to the level of the coffin lid, a section was dug around the base of the coffin so several people could stand next to it. Looking like mourners, a solemn group stood staring down at the coffin or in the dug-out space around it: The Rev. Kristinn A. Fridfinnsson, the pastor of the church; some of the Church’s elders; forensic experts; government officials; the attorneys for all the claimants of the estate; Dr. Oskar Reykdalsson, who officiated; and Ólafur Kjartansson, the sheriff of Selfoss—the town near the cemetery. All were there to make sure that the process was done in a respectful and professional manner and that the exhumation would not be compromised.
At four a.m., just before the DNA samples were collected, a large white tent was erected around the gravesite to ensure even further privacy. It was a calm, beautiful summer morning with a peaceful wind.
The coffin was never moved or raised, but the lid was opened. Some newspapers around the world reported that the body wasn’t actually dug up but that a drill was inserted through the earth, then through the coffin and into Bobby’s body. Sheriff Kjartansson corrected that report the next day. No drill was inserted, he said, and the samples were taken directly from Bobby’s body.
Normally, a DNA exhumation consists of gathering several specimens in the event that one might not be suitable. Forensic scientists recommend a fingernail, a tooth, a tissue sample, and a piece of the femur. In Bobby’s exhumation, a fragment of bone from his left small toe was extracted, in addition to seven tissue samples—enough for a binding test. As soon as the procedure was completed, the coffin was covered with the lava-infiltrated earth and a dusting of some residual ash that had drifted to Selfoss from the recently erupted volcano. Grass turf that had been removed when the digging had begun was then placed back on top of the grave. The samples were packaged and shipped to a forensics laboratory in Germany for testing; the Icelandic DNA laboratory was ruled out to avoid any possibility of compromise or conflict.
The idea of disturbing a dead body would be horrible for anyone—some religions such as Judaism and Islam forbid it except for highly exceptional circumstances—but Bobby, before his death one of the world’s most private beings, would no doubt have considered this final invasion of his privacy the ultimate act of disrespect. Even in death, he wasn’t being allowed to rest in peace.
In a way, however, he was the final arbiter. According to Article 17, act 76/2003 of Icelandic Parliament, “a man shall be deemed the father of a child if the outcome of DNA-research points decisively [to the fact that he is the father]. Otherwise he is not the father.” Six weeks after the exhumation, the results of the DNA test were released by the Reykjavik District Court: the DNA did not match. Bobby Fischer was not Jinky’s father.
With Jinky no longer being a putative heir, the remaining contenders for the estate were Miyoko Watai, the Targ nephews, and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
Like a chess game between equally matched competitors, however, the battle continued. Samuel Estimo, a chess master and Jinky’s attorney in the Philippines, wrote to Bogason, his Icelandic counterpart, and protested that Jinky’s claim had been relinquished too soon. Implying that there may have been skullduggery afoot, Estimo wrote a letter to The New York Times and sent it to other media as welclass="underline"
The exhumation of Bobby Fischer was not done the normal way. His coffin should have been brought up and opened so that it would have been sure that the seven tissue samples that were taken from the alleged remains in that coffin were that of Bobby Fischer. Indeed, the procedure undertaken borders on the doubtful. The lot where Fischer was buried belongs to the family of Gardar Sverisson, a close friend of Miyoko Watai, one of the claimants to the estate of Bobby. He had complete access without the church pastor knowing it. Fischer was buried in front of the church in an early January morning without the church pastor knowing it. Who knows what could have taken place there between the date of burial and on the days before the exhumation.