Kerouac drank himself to death at the age of 47 in October 1968. He left his estate, valued by the bank at $1, to his mother Gabrielle. Upon her death in 1973 Gabrielle left the estate to Kerouac's third wife Stella Sampas, whose family have managed it since her 1990 death.
The ruling found that Kerouac's mother's will was a forgery, following a suit brought by Kerouac's sister's son Paul Blake who, The Telegraph reports, claimed to have a letter written by Kerouac in which he said he wished his estate: "to go to someone directly connected with the last remaining drop of my direct blood line, and not leave a dingblasted f***ing goddamn thing to my wife's one hundred Greek relatives."
The victory in Florida does not mean that Blake will inherit the estate, as it was given to the Sampas family through Stella's will and not Gabrielle's. The value of Kerouac's estate was once estimated at $20-million, but John Sampas, who manages the estate on behalf of the family, told The Telegraph that it was worth less now. According to Sampas the estate includes the manuscript for Kerouac's unpublished first novel, The Sea is My Brother, which will be published in the US next year.
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