A man has been charged with stealing Judy Garland's 'Wizard of Oz' ruby slippers

  • 27 May - 02 Jun, 2023
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Mag Files

A man has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of stealing Judy Garland's ruby red slippers from "The Wizard of Oz," according to federal prosecutors in North Dakota. The shoes were stolen in 2005 and recovered in a sting operation conducted by the FBI in 2018, but no arrests were made at the time. Prosecutors announced Wednesday that Terry Martin was indicted on one count of theft of a major work of art. Martin was not named in the indictment, and there is no attorney listed for him in online records. Martin, 76, lives 12 miles south of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “I gotta go on trial. I don’t want to talk to you.” Janie Heitz, executive director of the museum, told The Associated Press she was surprised the suspect lived nearby but said no one who works at the museum knows him. Garland wore several pairs of the ruby slippers during production of the 1939 musical, but only four authentic pairs remain. When they were stolen, the slippers were insured for $1 million but the current market value is about $3.5 million, federal prosecutors said in a news release.

RELATED POST

COMMENTS