76-year-old Terry Jon Martin is a known career criminal and in 2005 he wanted just one last score. His mark was the original ruby red slippers worn by Judy Garland from the movie ‘Wizard of Oz’. Martin was told that the ruby’s on the slippers were real and that’s why the shoes are insured for a million dollars.
Martin didn’t get caught for stealing the shoes until last year.
Martin admitted to using a hammer to break a glass case at the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
Martin grabbed the shoes and took off! He brought the shoes to a fellow mob friend who deals in high end jewels. Martin was told that the ruby’s on the slippers were simply glass and within two days he simply got rid of them.
Martin’s attorney stated that his client had not committed a crime in the ten years prior to him stealing the shoes. He had a ‘criminal relapse’.
According to the FBI, in 2017, a man went up to the insurer and said he could assist in getting them back, but he wanted more than the $200,000 reward that was being given. The slippers were found during a Minneapolis FBI sting. The slippers are still in the FBI’s possession, but they have never been revealed how they were located.
When Martin stole the slippers, they were lent to the museum by Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, and a private collector own the three more pairs that Garland wore in the film.