Jim Morrison’s bust was stolen from his grave 37 years ago. Police just found it – by accident

A bust of Jim Morrison that was stolen from his grave in Paris in 1988 has been rediscovered, French police said Monday.

The bust had been taken from Père-Lachaise, the cemetery in the 20th arrondissement in east Paris where many notable figures are buried, including Frédéric Chopin, Gertrude Stein, Richard Wright, Édith Piaf, Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde.

A spokesperson for the Paris prosecutor’s office said the find was made by chance during a search carried out in connection with an unrelated investigation but declined to comment further.

The police and the mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment. There was no immediate word on when or if the bust would be returned to the grave site.

Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors, known for hits including Light My Fire and Riders on the Storm, died in Paris in 1971 at age 27, officially of heart failure, although he had struggled with drugs and alcohol, and no autopsy was performed. He had moved there a few months before.

Despite the notability of many of those interred around him, Morrison’s grave has consistently been among the most popular for the millions of tourists who visit every year, many of them not yet born when he died.

The bust of Morrison, which was sculpted by a Croatian artist, Mladen Mikulin, and unveiled in 1981 on the 10th anniversary of Morrison’s death, had a rocky few years by his grave before it vanished.

Fans chipped off bits for souvenirs and covered it with graffiti. Then in 1988, the 140kg bust was stolen.