Jim Morrison bust found in France, 37 years after theft

The tomb of Jim Morrison in Paris, France in June, 1985. (Photo by Laurent MAOUS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) (Laurent MAOUS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

PARIS, France -- French police have recovered by chance the long-lost bust of American singer Jim Morrison that once adorned the grave of the iconic frontman of The Doors, 37 years after it was stolen from a Paris cemetery.

The sculpture, missing since 1988, was found during a search tied to a fraud case led by the Paris public prosecutor’s office, a source close to the investigation told AFP.

Nostalgic rock fans still flock to Morrison’s grave at Paris’s Pere Lachaise cemetery, where he was buried after his death in the French capital in 1971 at the age of 27.

The sculpture, by Croatian artist Mladen Mikulin, had been placed at the grave to mark the 10th anniversary of Morrison’s death.

It was found by the financial and anti-corruption brigade of the judicial police department of the police.

The exact circumstances of the singer’s death are still shrouded in mystery, with most early accounts saying he died of cardiac arrest in his bathtub.

A French journalist, Sam Bernett, claimed in a 2007 book that close friends and family spun the official version of Morrison’s death to sanitise his reputation.

Bernett said Morrison actually died from a heroin overdose on the toilet of a nightclub that the journalist owned at the time, the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus” on Paris’s Left Bank.

The Doors, founded in Los Angeles, were among the most influential rock groups of the late 1960s and early ’70s and a mainstay of the counterculture of the times.

Their hits include “Riders on the Storm”, “Light My Fire” and “The End”, a haunting song that features prominently in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam war movie “Apocalypse Now”.

In February, Paris named a bridge after the iconic singer, located just steps from the bohemian Marais district where he last lived.