This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 1994, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Copyright 1994, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Friday afternoon, Mitchell and his nephew hid in a tomb in the Paris graveyard where the legendary singer is buried. When darkness fell, they drilled four holes in the granite headstone to mount a bronze bust of Morrison -- a replacement for one thieves stole years before.
But two French guards stopped them before they could bolt down the statue.
It was the end of an odyssey that cost the 36-year-old Layton man thousands of dollars and eight months of planning, an odyssey that began in the same Paris graveyard last fall.
In September, Mitchell and his wife Lori visited the Pere Lachaise cemetery -- the final resting place for hundreds of famous dead: Gertrude Stein, Chopin, Moliere and Morrison, the screaming frontman for the '60s acid rock band, the Doors. Morrison died of a heart attack and respiratory problems in a Paris bathtub in 1971. He was 27.
Mitchell was in France on a business trip, but his No. 1 priority was visiting the grave and bust he had seen in photographs. He and Lori followed messages of adoration scrawled by Doors fans throughout the labyrinthine graveyard.
But he was crestfallen when he saw the grave: The bust was gone.
``I thought, `That's not it. That's not what's supposed to be,' '' Mitchell said Tuesday night. ``It was almost devastating.''
``Then he kind of went off the deep end,'' said Lori.
Mitchell was always a fanatic about Morrison. The addiction began when he was 10 and his older brother started a garage band that played Doors tunes. When he returned to Utah, Mitchell could think of little else.
So he hatched a plan. He scoured books for pictures of the bust and picked an artist to create the mold. Salt Lake City sculptor J. Kenneth Allein didn't know who Morrison was, but accepted the assignment anyway.
Price tag for the 40-pound bust Mitchell planned to put on the grave was about $1,700. He dipped into a retirement fund.
Last Wednesday, he and his 26-year-old nephew, Dan, boarded the plane for Paris with three bags of tools, three cameras and a bottle of Irish whiskey with which they hoped to toast Morrison, once the bust was mounted.
After casing the Paris cemetery for two days, the men made their move Friday evening. They dodged several mourners and crawled into a tomb about the size of an outhouse where they waited until dark.
Numb from the waist down, Mitchell walked out about six hours later. Dan mixed the adhesive while Mitchell drilled.
``Oh, man! You wouldn't believe the noise. It was like we were hammering in a box,'' said Mitchell.
They secured one bolt and drilled three more holes.
``And then I saw a shadow moving toward me at a very high speed,'' Mitchell said.
A guard and his German shepherd were upon them.
``I showed him, `Here's Jim,' '' said Mitchell. ``I said, `I've got Jim, and I'm going to put him here.' ''
The guard plopped down on a gravestone. ``He just looked dumbfounded. . . . Most people are destroying stuff in that cemetery,'' said Mitchell.
Within moments, another guard arrived. He spoke into a radio and then announced, ``They don't think it's a good idea.''
Twenty minutes later, the Mitchells were handcuffed, tossed into the back of a police car and driven to a neighborhood station where no one spoke English.
``Every once in a while, I'd hear `Pere Lachaise,' `statue' and `Jim Morrison,' '' said Mitchell. ``And then they'd all argue.''
Two hours later, they were taken to another jail, strip searched and thrown into Plexiglas cells. ``I really hadn't accounted for the fact that I couldn't talk to anyone,'' he said.
Two hours later, they were moved again. From the back seat, Mitchell saw a sign that was one of the few French words he understood: ``bastille'' or prison.
Instead, the two men were taken to a physician who checked their blood pressure and gave them chocolate milk before sending them back to jail.
Mitchell and his nephew hummed Doors songs for the next two hours until Mitchell was summoned by an inspector.
``Drilling holes in tombs is illegal in France,'' the man said in English.
Mitchell tried to explain: ``I didn't mean to be destructive. I just wanted to put this nice piece of work there.''
Another hour in the cell and then, without explanation, they were sprung.
First thing they did was return to Pere Lachaise, where their cameras were stashed. They shot some videos and then did normal tourist stuff, like visiting the Eiffel Tower. But before getting off the plane in Utah on Monday, Mitchell knew he will be going back someday to erect that bust.