Deaths of Morrison and Courson
On July 3, 1971, Courson found Morrison dead in the bathtub of their apartment in Paris, France. The official coroner's report listed his cause of death as heart failure, although no autopsy was performed. Questions persist over the actual cause of death. Under Morrison's will, which stated that he was "an unmarried person", Courson inherited his entire fortune. Lawsuits against the estate would tie up her quest for inheritance for the next two years. Courson did not remain in contact with the remaining Doors members after she received her share of Morrison's royalties.
After Morrison's death, Courson became a recluse in Los Angeles, using heroin and showing signs of mental instability. In his follow-up book to the seminal Jim Morrison biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive, Jerry Hopkins mentions that Courson might have prostituted herself after Morrison's death, probably to keep up with the costly lifestyle she was used to when Morrison was still caring for her needs, and was apparently pimped by a former Doors employee, a chauffeur. Doors historian Danny Sugerman became friendly with her in Los Angeles after Morrison's death. Many years later he wrote in Wonderland Avenue that Courson's heroin addiction progressed to the point that when she smuggled her drugs in her car she hid them in different-colored balloons. She planned to swallow them if she saw an officer from the LAPD or Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department pulling her over. She planned to "shit them out" (her words) upon returning home.
On April 25, 1974, Pamela Courson died of a heroin overdose on the living room couch at the Los Angeles apartment she shared with two male friends. A neighbor said she had talked about looking forward to seeing Morrison again soon. Her parents intended that she be buried next to Morrison at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, and they listed this location as the place of burial on her death certificate, but due to legal complications with transporting the body to France, her remains were buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, California, under the name Pamela Susan Morrison. Several months after her death, her parents, Columbus and Peny Courson, inherited Morrison's fortune. Morrison's parents later contested their executorship of the estate.
Read more about this topic: Pamela Courson
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