\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tThe self-proclaimed thieves, who went only by \u201cX1\u201d and \u201cX2,\u201d with the stolen bust in 1988.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Antoine Le Grand\/modds<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe Paris police included a photo of the recovered bust wrapped in string, tagged as evidence, sitting on a rusty old dolly in a warehouse hallway. \u201cThis was a chance discovery,\u201d the police stated, \u201cmade during a search ordered by an examining magistrate at the Paris court.\u201d To convey their joy over the find, the police included a microphone and a starlight emoji \u2014 but no other details. \u201cUnfortunately, we do not have much information on the matter for now,\u201d Margot Dubertrand, press officer of the city of Paris, which manages P\u00e8re Lachaise, told me via email. They declined to answer questions about the matter.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tThe missing bust had fascinated me since my own visit to Morrison\u2019s grave in December of 1988. Tucked away in the eastern edge of Paris, the two-century-old P\u00e8re Lachaise is a lush, fantastical labyrinth of craggy paths and ancient tombs holding some of history\u2019s greatest artists: composer Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chopin, novelist Marcel Proust, singer Edith Piaf. With more than 3 million tourists annually, it remains the top-visited cemetery in the world, and Morrison\u2019s gravesite the most visited within its crumbling stone walls.<\/p>\n \n\tSince the mysterious death and secretive burial of the Doors\u2019 27-year-old frontman in 1971, it has drawn generations of followers and fans. And the bust \u2014 carved by a fan from white Macedonian marble, depicting the singer like Dionysius, and installed in 1981 \u2014 had become its centerpiece. Scribbled on by acolytes, soaked in wine, it was a physical manifestation of one of music\u2019s sacred odysseys. \u201cOn the unmarked grave were gifts from pilgrims before me,\u201d as Morrison\u2019s fellow musician and acquaintance Patti Smith wrote of her visit in Just Kids<\/em>, \u201cplastic flowers, cigarette butts, half\u2011empty whiskey bottles, broken rosaries, and strange charms.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut when I arrived that day, Morrison\u2019s head was gone. I later learned it had been stolen. As I started writing about true crimes, I always wondered about the unsolved case. And since the strange return of the bust in May, I\u2019ve been investigating the mystery. While questions remain, my exclusive interviews with the Morrison family and cemetery officials, and access to previously unreleased documents, reveal there is much more to the story. The untold saga of Morrison\u2019s bust leads from an elusive sculptor in Belgrade to the mayor of Paris to a tantalizing revelation from a previously undisclosed eyewitness.<\/p>\n \n\tLONG BEFORE HE WAS famous, Jim Morrison made his own pilgrimage to honor a fallen hero, as his sister, Anne Chewning, tells me. A retired school teacher living in California, Chewning has gray hair, icy blue eyes like her brother, and is the co-executor of his estate. She once taught the Doors song \u201cHorse Latitudes\u201d to her sixth graders, she says, \u201cto show them how music and poetry are linked.\u201d While on a family road trip through North Carolina, she recalls, Morrison begged their father Steve, a naval officer, to stop in Asheville, North Carolina, so that he could visit the home of one of his favorite novelists, Thomas Wolfe. \u201cI know places like that meant something to him,\u201d Chewning says, \u201cbecause he took the time to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMorrison had come to Paris in March 1971 with his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, to escape and write poetry. In September, he\u2019d been convicted of indecent exposure (and using obscenities) after allegedly exposing himself during a Miami concert. Sentenced to six months in prison and a $500 fine, Morrison was out on bail but facing an uncertain future. (He received a posthumous pardon in 2010.) With Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin having recently died from overdoses within weeks of each other, Morrison was rumored to have joked to friends, \u201cYou\u2019re drinking with number three.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAt around 6 a.m. on July 3, 1971, as Courson later told police, she woke up to find Morrison unresponsive in the bathtub of their rented apartment in town. The official cause of death was heart failure. Rumors later spread that he\u2019d overdosed on heroin, perhaps somewhere else, and been moved. Or that his chronic asthma had caused his death. But with no suspicion of foul play, There was no autopsy, only fueling more questions and speculation. The end for the man who often sang about it felt like no end at all.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tMorrison\u2019s grave has long been a destination for rock fans, the most visited burial site within P\u00e8re Lachaise\u2019s two-century-old walls.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPurschke\/ullstein bild\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tOn July 7, 1971, Courson and a few others hastily buried Morrison in a place he was said to have loved, P\u00e8re Lachaise, before going public. The family learned of his death from the news. <\/strong>\u201cThey wanted to do it so there wouldn\u2019t be a circus,\u201d Chewning recalls, \u201cbut they also didn\u2019t share it with us.\u201d Courson had gone to great lengths to keep crowds away. She chose what she thought was a discreet spot in Division 6 of P\u00e8re Lachaise, far from the crowds. She left no statue, no headstone, not even a marker.<\/p>\n \n\tIntrepid fans marked the spot themselves: tagging nearby tombstones and eventually decorating an old thick overhanging tree with so many pieces of chewing gum that the cemetery fenced it in. Families of loved ones buried near Morrison began complaining to the cemetery. In an attempt to curb the vandals\u2019 trail and help clearly identify the location, the cemetery added a modest nameplate at the site that simply read: \u201cJames Douglas Morrison 1943\u20131971.\u201d But it wasn\u2019t long before someone pried it loose and stole it as a souvenir.<\/p>\n \n\tMladen Mikulin, a young Doors fan and sculptor in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, was among those dismayed by the mess. \u201cThe state of the grave for me was unacceptable,\u201d he later said, according to a transcript of a 1996 interview<\/a> for Croatian TV. \u201cBetween the four graves in the cemetery of P\u00e8re Lachaise there was an empty space, and it was Jim. It was a strange place where hundreds of people came every day and all of them looked into a hole.\u201d Mikulin, all of 21 years old at the time, wanted to create and donate a bust of his own to adorn the gravesite as what called \u201can expression of gratitude\u201d for all the Morrison had left behind.<\/p>\n \n\tIn 1980, he wrote the City of Paris and the American Embassy in Belgrade for guidance. They each responded with the same directive: He needed the family\u2019s permission. \u201cThe cemetery requires that the American Embassy in Belgrade contact the family of the deceased to get an approval for decoration of the grave,\u201d the Embassy of Yugoslavia replied in a letter, \u201cand then transfer the approval to you.\u201d (Mikulin did not return requests to speak for this story).<\/p>\n \n\tBut the family tells me they never approved the bust at all. The reason, they say, is surprising: They don\u2019t actually control the gravesite. As the one who arranged for his burial, Courson held those rights, the family says. After her fatal overdose in 1974, the custody transferred to her parents. If anyone gave permission, Chewning says, it wasn\u2019t the Morrisons. Nevertheless, in March 1981, Mikulin received a letter on behalf of the mayor of Paris. \u201cI have the honour to inform you,\u201d it reads, \u201cthat exceptional permission is given to you to proceed with the decoration work and to place a bust of the singer.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOn July 3 that year, the 10th anniversary of Morrison\u2019s death, Mikulin, the three surviving members of the Doors, and dozens of fans crowded the grave for the bust\u2019s unveiling. \u201cTo see all the people that were there was very heartwarming,\u201d guitarist Robby Krieger, now 79, tells me. Despite folktales (and at least one blurry photo, as reported in Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>) of Morrison haunting the grave, Krieger adds, wryly, \u201cI didn\u2019t see ghosts or anything.\u201d With the bust in place, the site became \u201cthe focal point of an ever-growing social and sacred space,\u201d as Dutch sociologist Peter Jan Margry described it in an essay on modern pilgrimage sites. \u201cThe headstone usually functioned as a table, or \u2018shrine\u2019 as it was increasingly referred to, where they revered and paid homage to Morrison.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut for the family, the sacred place was becoming profane. Though Chewning says her brother \u201cwould have liked\u201d fans visiting his resting place, the trashed environment felt like \u201ca disgrace.\u201d They weren\u2019t the only ones who felt this way. For the 100 cemetery workers tasked with maintaining P\u00e8re Lachaise, the reverie at Morrison\u2019s grave turned into a battle. They complained about Doors fans sneaking into the cemetery after closing to meet at Morrison\u2019s grave to drink, smoke weed, and have sex. \u201cWe\u2019d like to kick him out because we don\u2019t want him, he causes too many problems,\u201d Christian Charlet, manager of the cemetery\u2019s 70,000 graves, told <\/a>Reuters in 2004. \u201cIf we could get rid of him, we\u2019d do it straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tChewning\u2019s daughter, Tristin Dillon, shows me an overstuffed folder she calls their \u201cWe Want to Move Jim dossier.\u201d It contains a previously unreported letter from Morrison\u2019s mother, Clara, written in 1986, asking the cemetery for his gravesite to be moved. There was talk of bringing him back to the U.S., but the family preferred a less conspicuous spot in P\u00e8re Lachaise; despite the controversies, it felt to them like an appropriate resting place. \u201cJim was in good company,\u201d Dillon says. Adds Chewning, \u201cWe were pleased that he was there. It\u2019s got that ancient feel to it, and that universal spirit of people that have been there.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tAndrew Sarnow\u2019s photo of the bust off its foundation in March 1988. He says people nearby were behaving \u201csuspiciously.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAndrew Sarnow<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tBut, they say, P\u00e8re Lachaise turned them down. \u201cThe cemetery just says, \u2018No, that\u2019s not possible,\u2019\u201d Dillon recalls. (The cemetery did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.) Frustrated and out of options, Morrison\u2019s mother supposedly suggested asking her friend in Paris to steal the bust and throw it in the Seine. \u201cI don\u2019t know if she made it up, because my grandma was fanciful,\u201d Dillon says. \u201cIf she really did tell her gal to do that or if it was a joke, I have no idea.\u201d Soon after, the bust got pinched.<\/p>\n \n\tIT WASN\u2019T LONG AFTER the crime that the two young Frenchmen placed their call to the Globe<\/em>, and, around the same time, gave their account of the heist on video. It seemed at first like the case was closed, but on closer examination, their story seems shaky. How did one moped \u2014 perhaps a light-bodied Eighties-era Mobylette, which Le Grand recalls seeing in the young men\u2019s apartment \u2014 carry two adult men and a 300-pound marble bust through the streets of Paris? Surely the weight would make it hard to accelerate and possibly even damage the bike\u2019s frame. With the cemetery workers so upset over the bust, could the duo\u2019s story be a ruse to cover something else: an inside job?<\/p>\n \n\tWith no information coming from the Paris police, I searched for clues of my own, including revisiting a strange eyewitness account I\u2019d heard years ago. Andy Sarnow, a friend of mine from our college days, had long told me about seeing people messing with Morrison\u2019s bust at P\u00e8re Lachaise when he was back in school. While working on this story, I hit him up about it again. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt in my mind I saw them trying to steal his head,\u201d Sarnow told me. And he claimed he had the photos to prove it.<\/p>\n \n\tOn a cold day in March 1988, two months before the bust was said to have been stolen, Sarnow, then a junior backpacking through Europe, visited the grave. As he was wandering up to the site, he spotted two young men and a woman milling suspiciously by a parked van, its large back door slid open. \u201cThey were nervous,\u201d he remembers. \u201cThey were sitting and smoking, trying to look innocent of something.\u201d Sarnow turned to see the bust sitting on the ground behind the foundation, and quickly snapped two photos before heading away.<\/p>\n \n\tSarnow\u2019s pictures, shared here publicly for the first time, show the bust from two angles behind the foundation. Despite the cemetery\u2019s promise to fix the head solidly on the base, the picture reveals only a tiny piece of rebar that had been keeping it place. Adding to the mystery, a letter from the cemetery to Mikulin shortly after the theft says it occurred not in May 1988, as the masked bandits had alleged, but two months earlier \u2014 when Sarnow saw the open van. \u201cThe bust of singer Jim Morrison disappeared,\u201d it reads, \u201cduring the night in March 1988.\u201d The Paris police and cemetery did not respond to a request for comment about this new development.<\/p>\n\n
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