Whether or not Jim Morrison is actually alive and living in Syracuse, as a documentary claimed earlier this year, a bust of the Doors' frontman has been recovered after being stolen from his gravesite 37 years ago.
Again, even if Morrison might be posing as a maintenance worker named Frank in upstate New York, he was quite famously buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery, from which the theft of the graffiti-covered marble bust designed by Mladen Mikulin occurred in 1988 — seven years following its unveiling on the 10th anniversary of Morrison's death.
French police have now reportedly recovered the statue in Paris amidst an unrelated fraud investigation being conducted by its financial and anti-corruption arm, according to a post shared on Instagram.
A spokesperson for the Morrison estate told Rolling Stone it was "happy to hear the news" of the bust's recovery. "Obviously it's a piece of history, and one [of] Jim's family wanted [it] there on his grave, so it's gratifying to see that it's been recovered," they said.
As of yet, it's unclear if the bust will be returned to the singer's gravesite: "The police haven't contacted us, so I don't know whether the bust will be returned to us," the cemetery curator told Le Figaro.
There had been many rumours about the theft since its occurrence — including that it was actually Père Lachaise that removed the statue in an effort to preserve it — but the only arrests made so far in that case came in 1994, when a pair of fans tried to replace the bust with a bronze replacement they had bought [via The Salt Lake Tribune].