Pilar Abel, a sixty-one-year-old tarot card reader, claims her mother had an affair with Salvador Dali and that she is the product of their torrid relationship. Last month, a judge granted Abel’s request to exhume Dali’s corpse for DNA testing. Thursday, technicians moved a stone slab covering the artist’s final resting place in order to gain access to the crypt. A small committee of five oversaw the entire process, including the removal of biological samples to be used for genetic study. The samples have been sent to a forensic lab in Madrid; the analysis could take weeks. If Abel is found to be Dali’s heir, this would entitle her to a substantial portion of Dali’s estate that he originally left to the Spanish state. If Abel is not Dali’s heir, then perhaps luck just was not in the cards.
See DNA Samples Taken from Salvador Dali’s Remains to Settle Paternity Suit, Fox News, July 20, 2017.
