Law enforcement offered a $250,000 US reward for information about the slippers' whereabouts early in the case, and an anonymous donor from Arizona put up $1 million in 2015. But the current market value is about $3.5 million, federal prosecutors said in a news release. When they were stolen, the slippers were insured for $1 million US. The search for the famous sequined ruby slippers has had a lot of ups and downs over the years, garnering international attention and the interest of documentary filmmakers.Īnd the longer they remained unaccounted for, the more valuable they became. Janie Heitz, executive director of the museum, told The Associated Press the museum's staff were "a little bit speechless" that someone had been charged all this time later. When reached for comment by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the accused said, "I gotta go on trial. Justice Department in North Dakota, said he could not provide any information beyond what was included in the one-paragraph-indictment. The indictment did not provide any further information about Martin, and online records do not list an attorney for him. Terry Martin, 71, was indicted Tuesday with one count of theft of a major artwork, prosecutors announced Wednesday. Dreams do come true: Smithsonian's Ruby slippers project passes $300K goal.Q Legendary Wizard of Oz ruby slippers found 13 years after brazen heist "Everyone was just crushed."īut now - 18 years after the slippers disappeared, and five years after they were recovered in an FBI sting - someone has been indicted for the crime that haunts Kelsch's memory. "It felt like a complete violation of our museum," Kelsch said. A single sequin remained on the ground amid the shards. Glass was strewn all over the museum floor where the slippers - one of four pairs worn by Garland in 1939's The Wizard of Oz - were missing. And then Kathy showed me the crime scene."Īn emergency exit door was smashed in.
I drove like almost 90 miles an hour to the museum. "I knew exactly what she meant," Kelsch, a curator and founding director of the museum, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. He'd just hopped out of the shower when the woman who worked at the museum's admissions desk, Kathe Johnson, called him and said: "They're gone." John Kelsch still vividly remembers the day the ruby red slippers were stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn, nearly two decades ago.
As It Happens 5:44 Theft of Wizard of Oz shoes was a mystery for 18 years.
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