{"id":266262,"date":"2025-06-01T02:36:22","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T02:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/this-300-pound-bust-was-stolen-from-jim-morrisons-grave-in-1988-french-police-just-recovered-it\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T02:36:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T02:36:22","slug":"this-300-pound-bust-was-stolen-from-jim-morrisons-grave-in-1988-french-police-just-recovered-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=266262","title":{"rendered":"This 300-Pound Bust Was Stolen From Jim Morrison’s Grave in 1988. French Police Just Recovered It"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Created for the tenth anniversary of the Doors frontman\u2019s death in 1971, the bust stood on his grave in the famous P\u00e8re Lachaise cemetery in Paris for only seven years<\/h2>\n
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Eli Wizevich<\/a><\/p>\n

– History Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

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Morrison’s mourners covered the bust in graffiti and chipped off pieces to keep as souvenirs before it was stolen in 1988.
\n Bruno De Hogues \/ Getty Images<\/span>
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Only five people came to\u00a0Jim Morrison<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0funeral<\/a> in Paris. His girlfriend, Pamela Courson, recited one of the\u00a027-year-old<\/a> rockstar\u2019s\u00a0poems<\/a> from memory. Then the small crowd (which included filmmaker\u00a0Agn\u00e8s Varda<\/a>) dispersed. It lasted only eight minutes.<\/p>\n

Since that day in the summer of 1971, there have been few moments of such calmness and solitude at the grave in\u00a0P\u00e8re Lachaise<\/a>, the\u00a0famous Parisian cemetery<\/a> where the Doors\u2019 lead singer and songwriter is buried alongside the likes of Honor\u00e9 de Balzac, \u00c9dith Piaf, Marcel Proust and Oscar Wilde.<\/p>\n

Even among other celebrity graves, Morrison\u2019s commands another level of attention in P\u00e8re Lachaise, a cemetery of 70,000 plots spread over more than 100 acres in Paris\u2019 20th arrondissement. Mourners scrawl notes to \u201cJim\u201d throughout the graveyard. They bring bottles of whiskey, cigarettes and marijuana to toast Morrison. They leave keepsakes and mementos around the grave and stick pieces of gum on a nearby tree.<\/p>\n

To mark the tenth anniversary of Morrison\u2019s death,\u00a0Mladen Mikulin<\/a>, a Croatian artist, added his own monumental gift: a 300-pound bust<\/a> of the musician. For seven years, as it sat atop the grave, the bust garnered layers of graffiti. Fans chipped off bits of the stone Morrison to take home as souvenirs.<\/p>\n

Then, one night in 1988, the whole bust disappeared without a trace. Theories proliferated. Some\u00a0claimed<\/a> they saw two men peeling away on a moped; others suggested the cemetery hid it away for safekeeping. But the bust never resurfaced\u2014until earlier this month, when French police announced they had recovered it during an unrelated investigation, nearly four decades after its disappearance.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis was a chance discovery made during a search ordered by an examining magistrate at the Paris court,\u201d a spokesperson from the Paris public prosecutor\u2019s office tells\u00a0CNN<\/a>\u2019s Amarachi Orie.<\/p>\n

Details about the investigation are scant. Investigators have not shared the identity of the suspects, only fueling rumors about how the bust disappeared and where it\u2019s been all these years, per the French broadcaster\u00a0RTL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The long absence of the bust generated unease among Morrison\u2019s devotees. When\u00a0Todd Mitchell<\/a> of Utah visited P\u00e8re Lachaise in 1993 and saw that the bust was missing from Morrison\u2019s grave, he \u201cwent off the deep end,\u201d said his wife, Lori, soon after the theft, per\u00a0Pollstar<\/em><\/a>. Upon his return to the United States, he could think of little else except for the bust. He decided to pay a sculptor $1,700 from his retirement fund to remake the piece in bronze.<\/p>\n

He and his nephew flew to Paris \u201cwith the sculpture, three bags of tools and a bottle of whiskey to toast the late rock star,\u201d per Pollstar<\/em>. They snuck into the cemetery after dark, waited until the coast was clear and began drilling bolts into the tombstone to secure the artwork. Security guards and police soon appeared and arrested the pair, despite their insistence that they were adding to the grave, not destroying it.<\/p>\n

Many of the\u00a0millions of tourists<\/a> who visit P\u00e8re Lachaise each year believe they\u2019re adding to the graves of their idols. Until a glass barrier was added around\u00a0Wilde\u2019s grave<\/a> in 2011, lipstick stains left by admirers of the Irish author, playwright and poet caused damage to his tomb\u2019s massive sculpture. The crotch on the bronze sculpture<\/a> of 19th-century French journalist Victor Noir has been rubbed to a shine by visitors who consider it a boon for fertility.<\/p>\n

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Morrison’s fans stuck gum on a tree near his fenced-off grave in P\u00e8re-Lachaise.<\/p>\n

Ghomsteitler via Wikimedia Commons under CC0 1.0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Morrison\u2019s grave has commanded its fair share of excessive attention, with some mourners of those buried in nearby plots demanding the singer\u2019s remains return to America, according to the London Times<\/em><\/a>\u2019 Adam Sage.<\/p>\n

Morrison\u2019s grave is now fenced off, but its infamy is inextricable from the legend of P\u00e8re Lachaise. It is \u201cto P\u00e8re Lachaise as the Mona Lisa is to the Louvre,\u201d Beno\u00eet Gallot, the curator of the cemetery, writes in his book\u00a0The Secret Life of a Cemetery: The Wild Nature and Enchanting Lore of P\u00e8re Lachaise<\/em>,<\/a> per\u00a0Le Figaro<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Emma Ferrand.<\/p>\n

Whether the bust is coming back to Morrison\u2019s grave is still unclear. \u201cThe police haven\u2019t contacted us,\u201d Gallot tells Le Figaro<\/em>. \u201cI don\u2019t know if the bust will be returned to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on photos posted by the Parisian police on\u00a0social media<\/a>, the bust appears to be in just as poor shape as it was in the 1980s. The nose is missing, and every inch is covered in grime and graffiti.<\/p>\n

Jeff Jampol, manager of Morrison\u2019s estate, tells CNN that he was \u201chappy to hear\u201d the bust was located after nearly four decades. \u201cObviously it\u2019s a piece of history, and one Jim\u2019s family wanted there on his grave, so it\u2019s gratifying to see that it\u2019s been recovered.\u201d<\/p>\n

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