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Jack Kerouac’s Will is a Fake

Jack Kerouac with his third wife, Stella Sampas

A Florida judge has ruled that Jack Kerouac’s 1973 will is a forgery. Kerouac’s estate — which includes unpublished manuscripts, journals, and thousands of letters — is estimated to be worth $20 million.

Kerouac, who died in 1969, left everything to his mother, who died in 1973 and left everything to Kerouac’s third wife, Stella Sampas. At least those involved thought so. According to an Associated Press wire story, Kerouac’s daughter, Jan, challenged the will in 1994, after seeing a copy and deciding the signature was fake. She died two years later, but Paul Blake Jr., the writer’s nephew, continued the litigation.” Kerouac died from alcoholism at age 47, but shortly before his death he wrote a letter to his young nephew, expressing his wishes to leave his estate to his mother — “and not to leave a dingblasted thing to my wife’s one hundred Greek relatives.” And now a judge has agreed.

According to the AP report:

The ruling is sure to please some Kerouac devotees who have objected to the handling of the writer’s estate, including the sale of his raincoat to actor Johnny Depp for $50,000 and the original manuscript scroll of Kerouac’s 1957 classic On the Road, which was sold to the owner of the Indianapolis Colts for $2.43 million.

Meanwhile, the ruling might possibly turn Blake’s life around. Blake, who has lived a life of poverty and occasional homelessness, currently lives in a mobile home with no toilet in Arizona.