In Plain Sight: The Signature that Denies the Death of Jim Morrison

 On December the 8th of this year, 2023, Jim Morrison of The Doors, will be 80 years old. 

Why do I say that, rather than state that Jim Morrison died 50 years ago?

The answer is simple: on the 3rd of July 1971, Pamela Susan Courson - the only witness to James Douglas Morrison's death - gave a statement regarding that death to the police. A statement signed in her name ... by Jim Morrison himself.

Who said that dead men can't tell tales?

But how could this be? If Morrison had died earlier that day, as his girlfriend Pamela Courson testified - it would have been impossible for him to have signed her statement in her name.

Some might argue that the statement was made before he died, and that he signed it pre-emptively. But this is even more absurd, and as I will set out, virtually impossible.

[image of Jim [aged 27] & Pam [aged 24] by Alain Ronay 28 June 1971, i.e., six days before Jim's death. Examples of Jim's handwriting added] (1)

While the reports of what happened to Jim Morrison in the early hours of the 3rd of July 1971 may vary and are often contradictory, most accounts agree on one thing: in the afternoon of that day, after the body had been pronounced dead, Pamela Courson, along with Jim's long time friend, Alain Ronay, were taken by the French police to the police station so that Pam could make a full statement to the effect of how Jim Morrison had died that morning, and that he was dead when the emergency services had arrived. Alain Ronay, a French born American, acted as translator because Pam spoke no French. Pam had called Ronay over to the flat that morning when she realised Jim was dying. When Ronay arrived, he called the police, although he claims he didn't see the body.

In any walk of life, a situation like this would need explaining to the police due to the suspicion of foul play, not least when the deceased was a young man, renting a very expensive flat in a prestigious part of Paris for himself and Ms. Courson, his girlfriend.

The document which records this statement was a highly official document [report #997] that could not have been done at any other date and time as that recorded on it. That information is recorded, with every numeral spelled out as a word to indicate - in a pre-digital age - that this form cannot be easily faked. It also states the place [The Arsenal, Paris] where the interview which resulted in that statement was conducted. This kind of official document - dealing as it does with a premature death in this case - cannot be made at any date, time and place other than that which is stated on it, the investigating officer [O.P.P. Jacques Manchez] signing it to that effect. The statement is minuted in real time time by a police official: the interview began at 1540hrs [first page], and ended at 1630hrs [second page].

Once the statement is completed, it is read back to Pamela Courson, with Alain Ronay supplying the translation. Once Ms. Courson agreed that the statement faithfully records what she had said, she would then have had to sign it there and then in the station, in front of the investigating officer, who would then counter-sign it himself. Thence the document is given the official stamp next to P. Courson's signatures.

[Document - two pages of police report - the signatures have been enlarged] (2)

And this is where we have the problem. For, it wasn't Pamela Courson who signed as 'P. Courson' on both pages of her statement. The handwriting clearly shows that it was Jim Morrison who had signed her name both times, not Pam.

But this has to be impossible - how could Jim sign a police report which states he had died some eight hours prior?

Before we examine the signatures on this document more closely, let us reflect on the seeming attempts - immediately after Morrison's death - to prevent this document from getting into the public domain.

In the month following the death, Jim's attoney, Max Fink [who was named in Morrison's 1969 Will as an executor], and Pam Courson [named as the main beneficiary in the same Will] both sought to ensure that Jim's estate be placed in their hands.

[documents - Jim's Will of 1969 subjected to petition of probate in August 1971 after his death in July] (3)

No doubt, Morrison's own family, the Doors & their management & publishers, and the Courson family too, were all on the case, legally. We can be certain that their collective lawyers - quite rightly - would have pored over all the documents relating to Jim's death, including the police report which contained the statement of the ONLY witness to Jim's death.

While one would not expect these documents to be made public back in those days of the early 1970s, how is it - when writing the first full biography of Jim Morrison [published in 1980] - that The Doors employee Danny Sugarman and his co-author Jerry Hopkins could write:

"There was no police report ..."

['No One Here Gets Out Alive', Hopkins & Sugarman, p. 368]

As the public interest in Morrison and The Doors grew, from the late 1970s, and through into the 1980s, with film rights being discussed, how could this police report remain hidden?

In 1990, freelance writer and investigator Bob Seymore badgered the Paris authorities to disclose all the documents relating to the death of Jim Morrison. And after first being stonewalled by Danny Sugarman and the French authorities ["confidential" they said], his persistence paid off, at least in regard to the French. Finally he got a copy of the elusive police report which he reprinted in his book 'The End, The Death of Jim Morrison', published in 1990.

Strangely, Seymore didn't notice that the signatures on that police report which said 'P. Courson' were not written by Pam, but by Jim. Or if he did notice, like all those before him, he said or did nothing about it.

How could it be, that this vital piece of evidence - hiding in plain sight - had not been noticed before now?

In 2022 [23rd of September], on 'The Doors Fan Group' [Facebook], Lilith McGregor wrote:

"Hello everyone from Italy! 

Does anyone know that Pamela was left-handed? Because I just finished translating Sam Barnett's book and at the end of the book there are police reports and other documents and I found a strange thing, the signature of the police report (Pamela's signature) has the same handwriting as the signature of the will made by Jim (signature of Jim). It seems that the same person signed it but it's impossible! Look at the letter N of the signatures, they are identical and both appear to be written by a left-handed person with the same handwriting."

[Lilith McGregor added the above graphic comparing the Pam police statement signature (top) with Jim's signature from his Will (bottom)]

I didn't see this post until February of 2023, and then entered into a discussion with Lilith on the same thread, and became convinced she had uncovered this startling - and seemingly impossible - fact: Jim Morrison signed Pam's name.

Jim's handwriting is well known, as he wrote all his poems long hand in his journals, and many examples of these have been published from the 1960s onwards, and his looping style is very distinctive. Pam's handwriting is less well evidenced, but there are examples. A blog dedicated to Pam on Wordpress published the following example of  Pam's writing, that show her handwriting was very different to Jim's. 

[example of Pamela Coursan's self written lyrics] (4)

This is corroborated by some examples of cheques made out to Jim Morrison during his time with The Doors, where he has signed the back of them. On some of these he also signed Pam's name, presumably so that Pam could cash them in her account on his authority. On one of these cheques, underneath Jim's signature is written 'Pamela S Courson' in Pam's handwriting, matching that given above, an occasion where she signed for herself.

[examples of cheques 1) Jim signs and Pam signs 2) Jim signs as himself and Pam] (5)

But there is a good example where Jim signs his own name, and then signs Pamela's name under it as 'P Courson' in an identical fashion to the signature on the police report. This is clear proof that it was not Pam who signed her statement on the afternoon of the 3rd of July, but James Douglas Morrison, 'deceased'.

I can only conclude that Morrison did not die on that day, and that Pamela Courson and Alain Ronay both knew this to be true, directly.

Given the initial attempted cover up of the existence of the police report, I might assume that The Doors management and the Morrison and Courson families also knew of this too.

While speculation might follow, the one salient fact remains: 

Jim Morrison signed his own death report!

He lived.

[Jim Morrison's handwritten lyrics to part of the song 'Queen of the Highway', said to be about Pam Courson].

Notes: 

1) Photomontage

2) Autopsyfiles.org - Jim Morrison Death Certificate and Police Report [PDF 2011]

3) http://mildequator.com/documents/legaldocs.html

4) Song Lyrics: https://pamelasusancoursonmorrison.wordpress.com/

5) https://www.psacard.com/autographfacts/music/jim-morrison/

     https://live.autographmagazine.com/

Links:

The Doors Fan Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/424086354457130

Mild Equator - The Doors Collective Archive and Online Marketplace http://mildequator.com/

Pam and Jim Morrison - https://pamelasusancoursonmorrison.wordpress.com/

Bibliography;

Seymore, Bob; The End. The Death of Jim Morrison, 1990, Omnibus Press

Butler, Patricia; Angels Dance and Angels Die. The tragic romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison, 1998, Omnibus Press.

Hopkins, Jerry & Sugarman, Danny; No One Here Gets Out Alive. The long-awaited biography of Jim Morrison, 1980, Plexus Publishing Ltd.

Copyright Bill Boethius Osborn, February 2023 with acknowledgements to Lilith McGregor