The missing bust of American singer Jim Morrison, which mysteriously disappeared from his Paris grave in May 1988, has been found by French authorities – and it was completely by accident.
It was only by chance that the financial and anti-corruption squad of the Paris police came upon the stone carving of the legendary Doors singer 37 years after its disappearance, while investigators were looking into a fraud.
“This was a chance discovery during a search carried out in a fraud case,” the Paris prosecutor's office said.
The city’s judicial police shared on social media their delight that “this iconic symbol for the singer’s fans was recovered”.
The bust was created one decade after Morrison, the poetic songwriter of the band at the forefront of 1960s counterculture, was found dead in a Paris bathtub in 1971 by his girlfriend, Pamela Courson.
The timing of his death has seen Morrison inducted into the infamous 27 Club, an informal list of rock stars and musicians who died at that age, including Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse.
Morrison’s official cause of death was listed as heart failure, but in the absence of an official autopsy, further theories have swirled around his passing. French journalist Sam Bernett claims the icon overdosed in the toilets of a Parisian nightclub, the Rock’n’Roll Circus.
On the tenth anniversary of Morrison’s death, Croatian sculptor Mladen Mikulin placed the marble bust of his own construction at the grave. It became a site of pilgrimage for fans of The Doors.
Despite the cult-like adulation for one of the world’s most famous musicians, Morrison’s bust was not well looked after and was repeatedly damaged by vandals before it was stolen from the cemetery in 1988.
For 37 years it was lost, with the circumstances of its disappearance still shrouded in mystery. Whether its discovery in the fraud case will spark further investigation is yet to be confirmed by French authorities.
Several theories were attributed to its disappearance, according to Benoit Gallot, curator of the Pere-Lachaise cemetery where Morrison is buried. Some believe a moped had entered the cemetery during the night before it disappeared, he told Le Figaro following the discovery. Others suggested the government itself might have taken the sculpture to store it away from visitors for its own protection.
Also unclear is whether the bust will be returned to its original place. “The police have not contacted us, I don’t know if the bust will be returned to us,” Mr Gallot said.
