What Happened to Chess Prodigy Peter Winston?
He went missing in 1978 and was never seen again.
Peter Winston’s story reminds me of ‘The Queen’s Gambit’. Though ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ was fictional TV series on Netflix, it highlighted the internal struggles of brilliance, mental health, and substance abuse. This missing person case is a little odd because a missing person file was never created; thus, an investigation was never undertaken. Peter Winston walked away and vanished. His family has refused to comment on his disappearance.
Peter Winston was born in New York City in 1958. His parents, Leonard and Florence Winston were both academics. His father was described as a thin and slight man who taught chemistry at Columbia. His mother, Florence, also had a teaching degree from Columbia. She also dabbled in theatre, occasionally taking parts in small productions when she wasn’t teaching.
Leonard Winston passed suddenly when Peter was only nine. After his father’s passing, his mother seemed to cling to him harder.
Peter stood out from an early age. It was clear to anyone who had met Peter that he was an exceptional child. He was reported to have started reading before turning two years old and could do simple arithmetic by three. He began attending a gifted children’s school at age five, where he was…
