His end does not tally with the novelist's image of chessplayers as cold, calculating, and efficient. Having unofficially adopted an 11-year-old girl and paid for her upbringing, he proposed marriage when she was 21. She rejected his offer and he didn't improve his chances by, one evening in Brooklyn, shooting her four times in the head. He then set about ending his own life by jumping into the river to drown himself. Unfortunately, the tide was out. Undeterred, he climbed out, and shot himself twice in the head. Amazingly, this didn't work either, muddy and freezing, he was arrested, interrogated, and taken to hospital. His injuries were not necessarily fatal, but he successfully died ten days later, lacking the will to live.
The woman survived.