County Seeks Missing Papers On Morrison Arrest '92

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County Seek Missing Papers On Jim Morrison Arrest
The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinet
July 1991


Miami - A Dade County Circuit Court administrator has asked for a police investigation into the disappearance of 43 documents from the court file detailing the 1969 obsenity arrest of the late rock star Jim Morrison.

The investigation was sparked when the original bail bond sheet signed 22 years ago in Miami by The Doors' lead singer, "James Douglas Morrison" sold for $15,950 at a Sotheby's New York acution house in June.

"I'm pretty sure the documents were stolen from our files,: said Dade Clerk of the Courts Marshall Ader, who reported the theft to Miami and Metro-Dade police last month.

Ader said he wants the FBI to investigate the case. Miami and Metro-Dade police do not have any authority in New York.

The bond sheet stems from Morrison's arrest on suspicion of indecent exposure during a concert at Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami's Coconut Grove section. If it is authentic, it had to come from the Dade case files and Adler wants it back.

After hearing of the auction, court officials looked in the Morrison file and discovered the disappearane of 42 other items, including photographs, transcripts and other court filings.

A spokesman for Sotheby's in New York could not be reached for comment.

Ader says he has no idea who may have pilftered the documents from the file, now lept in the county's archives.

END.

Entertainment Weekly Magazine
Posted Aug 30, 1991 | Published in issue #81 Aug 30, 1991

THE HARD (ROCK) SELL
By Bob Cannon

An unopened Beatles' Yesterday and Today album brought in $301 at a Philadelphia Beatles convention in 1976. The same album today is listed in collectors' guides at $4,500. Just why are rock artifacts such a booming business? ''Our strategy of collecting made the market happen,'' claims Stephen Routhier, vice president of memorabilia and display for the Hard Rock Cafe, the outfit that must share in the responsibility for sending prices of rock relics sky-high. Bolstered by a $2 million spending frenzy in 1986 and '87, the Hard Rock has gathered more than 10,000 rock artifacts for display at its 22 clubs. Routhier says, ''We were getting (a grand majority of really good stuff) at considerably less than what it costs now.'' And what might that price be? Jimi Hendrix's platinum album award for Are You Experienced? sold for $2,600 at a Sotheby's New York auction in June. That same day a 1970 postcard from John Lennon to his son Julian brought a whopping $3,250. Boy George's dreadlocks reside at the Hard Rock in Singapore. Price in 1987: $600. Here are some more jaw-dropping prices from recent Sotheby's auctions: * Grateful Dead autographed drum head (list price $35): $300 * Elvis Presley autographed 40-inch-by-40-inch stage scarf: $800 * Madonna's signed bustier: $9,900 * Jim Morrison's 1969 bail bond from Dade County, Fla.: $14,000

www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,315313,00.html

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Miami Herald
Posted on Wed, Mar. 01, 2006
By: Luisa Yanez

Whereaouts Of Court Papers From Trial Remain A Mystery

For years, a Miami-Dade court official searched for missing court papers related to Jim Morrison's 1969 criminal case, but to this day the disappeared documents remain a mystery.


Twenty years after Jim Morrison's 1971 death, a Miami-Dade court records clerk made a disturbing discovery:

Forty-two pieces of paper from the singer's criminal file -- including his signed bail bonds and his arrest record -- were missing. The documents had been pilfered, but exactly when and by whom remains a mystery to this day.

The theft came to light in 1991 when Sotheby's in New York announced an upcoming auction. Among the rock collectibles on sale: one of Morrison's Miami-Dade bail bonds.

Who gave Sotheby's the stamped original? Were other Morrison documents being auctioned?

Enter Gordon Winslow, the clerk's historian and archivist. Winslow made it a personal crusade to recover the documents. He reported the Sotheby's sale to local police, but the auction house's attorneys maintained that it did not have a stolen item -- and thus could sell it. Someone paid $15,900 for the bail bond.

Winslow began his own sleuthing. A strong lead pointed him to Danny Sugerman, a Door's insider who co-wrote two Morrison books, No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980) and The Doors: The Illustrated History (1983). Sugerman was the last person to check out Morrison's court file before the records vanished, the probe showed. His signature is the last on the Morrison file's sign-out sheet prior to the discovery of the theft. Records cannot be removed from the reading room.

''He is the prime suspect,'' said Winslow, who sent Sugerman a certified letter in 1992 demanding the item back. Sugerman didn't respond. He died last year. A spokesman for Sugerman said he did not know of such documents.

William Siddons, the Doors former manager, said Sugerman took valuable Morrison documents from his garage. ''He ripped me off too,'' said Siddons, who said he owns Morrison's copy of one of the bail bonds. ''Someone offered me $5,000 for it. I said no.'' Today, Winslow holds little hope of recovering the Morrison documents. ''They're gone, sold to private collectors,'' said Winslow, now retired.

Today, anyone viewing the remaining three boxes of Morrison trial files -- permanently stored at a records center in West Miami-Dade -- does it under the watchful eye of a clerk.

Miami Herald researcher Paul Hodges contributed to this report.

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