Ridiculous crime. It is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren Elizabeth.
So we went around iHeart Security and we broke into the building. You can't stop, you know, But what happens if they find us?
Oh prob I shouldn't record this part then huh crap, that's too late.
It's oh whatever, Well, because we have to do this by ourselves.
Yeah, we'll say this is an act.
Yeah, this is all a big joke.
Didn't happen.
So you probably remember that we aired an episode on June twenty ninth, twenty three called Slip Sliding Away the theft of Judy Garland's ruby slippers. Oh hell yeah, right, what fun time we had that you weren't even there.
I wasn't just laughing.
It was great. So the story it wrapped up with the latest development at the time when I told producer Dave about it. On Tuesday May fifteenth, twenty twenty three, this seventy six year old dude in Minnesota named Terry Martin. He got indicted for one count of theft of a major artwork in the shoes.
That's cool.
So that was you know, that's how I closed it out, and that you know, the slippers that, of course, were stolen from the Judy Garland Museum, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, August twenty eight, two thousand and five.
We need to get our tickets, Oh.
Yeah, oh yeah, So the ones that were recovered Interesting Operation, Minnesota, September two thousand and nine. So, for whatever reason, twenty two years after the heist, fourteen years after the slippers were recovered, Old Terry gets busted. And you know, he pleaded guilty to the heist five months after his indictment October twenty twenty three. He showed up for sentencing in January twenty twenty four in a wheelchair and on supplementary oxygen.
Judge took pity on him and he was sentenced to time served. They're like, you know, your life is hellish enough. And he had a long history of burglary and receiving stolen property. So his attorney, this guy Dane Decraye. He's lawyer Decraye, Dane of the Craze. Uh so he he was like, Terry was trying to just pull off one last score.
I do declare I'm Dane de Crag so I'm still hung up on.
That de cray Z. So Terry, he was like guys trying to just pull off one last score. And he uses the phrase one last score after an old buddy his with mob ties told him where the shoes were, and then that the mob guy was like, Terry, all that sparkle on the shoes, that's from real jewels. Terry believed him, the mob aphiliate guy, He's like, that's why they're so valuable, taby, Terry's like a lot. And so, you know, neither of these guys understood the precious nature
of nostalgia or cultural currency, or fame or sentiment. So Terry took the shoes so like took him to his fence zing and then fence broke it to Terry that the rubies were actually glass. So Terry rid himself.
Of the slippers. Did he explain the value of Judy.
Yeah, he broke out into song and yeah, it was it was beautiful.
This is where the value comes.
He was like, hold on a second, clang clang clang. Yeah, So Terry got rid of those slippers. But his attorney was like, I'm not going to tell you how, why, where, when? Yeah, but that's not the end. So December seventh is a day that will live in infamy. Saren not just because it's the day that our nation came under attack in nineteen forty one, kicking off our involvement in World War two.
Ah, yes, bro Harbor.
Yeah, just this year, December seventh, twenty twenty four. Uh huh, those iconic ruby slippers sold at auction. Really, Heritage Auctions was running things. They figured the slippers would get about three million at auction.
Three million.
Yeah.
Online bidding opened in November of twenty twenty four.
All right, online bidding, I missed my window.
Go on, you totally did. The top bid hung at about like one point five to five million before live bidding began on the afternoon of December seventh. Right, so within minutes, the top bid was almost ten million dollars. What Yeah, more than triple the estimated final bid.
Yeah. I was just doing that matter right, I could do it.
So the phone bids, they're coming in fast. The callers are one upping each other. It's climbing. It's like sane, yeah, really quickly. For fifteen minutes. When all was sudden done, the winning bid emerged twenty eight million dollars. Whoa for a pair of busted up slippers.
That's the value of Judy Garland.
Oh yeah, and then you factor in the auction house's feet final bill thirty two point five million dollars.
Could you help me pick my job back up?
Auction house is making bank house. We totally do. Who was the winning bidder?
Who was Elizabeth?
None other than Elon Musk.
Are you kidding?
I'm totally kidding.
Ah, thank you.
The shoes were his size. Now the actual winner.
iHeart he was going to send him into Mars. He was right at the plan.
Iheartradiown nice as a holiday gift for us.
You are all still kidding.
I have one hundred percent kidding. The buyer wanted to remain anonymous. Oh that update out of the way. Let's take a trip down the yellow brick memory lane and listen to me show exactly why I'm universally known as America's sweetheart and captivate you with the tale of the stolen Ruby Slippers. David City, Elizabeth Dunton, Hey, how Dave? The others? Aaron? How are you today?
I'm all right, I'm sweating a little bit.
Good, okay, same. You know it's ridiculous, I do, Oh you do?
Do you know anything about how crazy McDonald Land is.
No, it's like McDonald land in actual place or like the fictional universe of it.
Like imagine you know the origins of where McDonald land came from.
Okay, No, I don't know anything about this.
Well, first, it comes out of Willard Scott's work as Boza the Clown. He's the original Ron McDonald right right. And McDonald's goes to an ad agency. Of course, this was like it used to be. It's now DDB. It used to be Needham, Harper and Steers. They're like, hey, can you make us like a whole thing out of this, just like do a whole thing. Yeah, and they're like, okay. So the first commercial comes in nineteen seventy one and
at this time, you know the purple dude Grimace. Yeah, back then his name, his official government name is Evil Grimace.
Oh you're kidding me.
Yeah.
So they're like, we need a land, a mythical, mystical land surrounding our Hammurgers. Let's have an evil character.
Involved, not just one, there's like multiple the Hamburglar and you've got Captain Crook at the time, who you know, like you can't miss the name all their whole thing is all like shoplifting, and Ronald stops them from shoplifting, and so that's supposed to get you into the restaurants.
Okay, running from shoplifters.
Yeah, Like I don't know, Like, are you like, oh that that must be in high demand because people keep five fingering all their food. But like, just to give you a sense of how weird the whole thing was in seventy one. In seventy three, Sid and marty Croft, those of you know hr puff and stuff, and like Siden marty Croft's World of was like World of Puppets in Atlanta, which was before CNN Center was CNN Center was in that building. Anyway, they did some real trippy stuff, right.
They sued McDonald's successfully. They got a fifty thousand dollars settlement and then it was appealed and they got a million dollar settlement from McDonald because the McDonald's stuff looked too much like the Croft's hr puffin stuff.
Weird stuff.
Oh, I had no idea.
But that's not the only weird thing.
Uh.
Oh, so Evil Grimace. Much later people are trying to find out like, hey, what is Grimace? Right? This has been like even before the Internet. There was lore of, like, well, what the hell is Grimace?
Yeah? Yeah, the gum drop.
As far as we can tell from official McDonald's spokesperson Official McDonald's Twitter account, they said, quote, Uh, are you ready for this?
Yeah? I'm totally ready.
Grimace Lare says he is the embodiment of a milkshake or a taste bud.
Oh, grim is a taste bun.
How gross is that?
That's so disgusting? But is there a bunch of Grimace stuff out now? Like?
Yeah, I think he's hitting it big now for some reason?
Is there a shake? Is there a Grimace Shake?
Well, Grimace's uncle, Grimsumple's name is O Grimacy. Uh, and he's the one promoting the Shamrock Shake.
This is Irish slander over here.
Well, I don't know if, like, is is O Grimacy like a bad taste bud? And that's why he's promoting the Shamrock shake and Grimace is like a pretty good taste bud.
Yeah, I mean, if you're drinking a Grimace shake? Is there a Grimace Shake? Why do I feel like there is? I keep thinking I see this stuff on social media.
Twenty twenty one, This is the Shamrock the grimacy shake.
So it's basically liquefied taste buds, is what you're trying to say to me, David.
Well, what freaks me out is like, imagine you're a little kid and you're just going to hug this big purple thing and it's a taste bud, like.
You taste saliva on someone's tongue. Yeah, because then is this just an independent taste bud or an invisible tongue.
It leaves a lot of questions.
I have a lot of questions about the McDonald's universe. But that is ridiculous, pretty ridiculous, Right, that's ridiculous. You want to know what else is ridiculous? I would stealing sequined shoes. Ooh, this is ridiculous. Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
That's fact check.
Totally, Dave. You've seen the movie The Wizard of Oz, right.
Uh, yeah, and I've seen the Whiz so sure.
But like Wizard of Oz, the original came out in nineteen thirty nine, it was still really popular when I was a kid.
Originally in black and white right, and they had to colorize it later.
That's part of the whole thing in the film is that, like when she goes to, oh yeah, the other side, it's color right. So but it was like a spectacular it was. It was incredible, Like it used to come on TV once a year and like I'd get all excited. I don't think young people these days are as familiar with Wizard of Oz.
They could just tell him the creepy urban myth, yeah right, that would get them.
Well, So here, I think cable pushed the Wizard of Oz out of the mainstream. That's my theory because like in my house, we were really really late adopters of cable, so we were still relying on like network movies. But I feel like it kind of fell off sometime, like I don't know, in the nineties. It's just it's just it's it's not just me. Our researcher Andrea. She mentioned it too that kids these days don't seem to know the media that like we or our parents or our
grandparents knew. Like the Internet gives us too much choice, is what she was. She was thinking kind.
Of like when when I was little and we finally got HBO, and they showed Savannah smiles over and over and over again. I don't know why it's not a good movie. I think it's like one of the O'Neills or something. But yeah, I hear it.
Yeah, it just it murders it. So we don't do murder here. Zaren. He actually talks about this sometimes that like each generation seems to have a shorter and shorter range of historical or cultural knowledge. So keeping that in mind anyway. The Wizard of Oz the movie is based on a book by L. Frank Baum called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and that was written in nineteen hundred and In the movie, Dorothy Gale lives in Kansas with
her aunt and uncle. Some ladygoon in town wants to have Dorothy's dog, Toto put down, and it's a cairen terrier. And I can tell you that they are an acquired taste.
Did you say, did you say a carring terrier.
A cairen like c A I R N.
Got it.
Okay, so it's of Scottish origin, a terrier. Yeah. Well, and they're just nasty little dogs for the most part. But Toto, he didn't deserve a visit to the executioner. My mom had a car and terrier named Finn, who could be such a jerk but then super sweet. And I have a scar on my shin from where he bit me once, but I probably deserved it anyway.
That's how I feel about my dog bites too, Right.
You're like, I pushed the wrong buttons. So Dorothy, she legs it with Toto and gets caught in a tornado, wakes up in the Land of Oz. Her house landed on one of the batties, the Wicked Witch of the East, and then Dorothy helps herself to the witch's red ruby slippers heads off to get help returning home from the Great oz Over in Emerald City. So that's just brief recap. The slippers are the key to her being able to get home. She has to tap her heels together three
times and say, there's no place like him. You remember that, Rainelle.
It was always a little confusing because like the ruby slippers, but she's they got heels right.
They got heels, ye, yeah, yeah, they're like little you know, sensible pumps. Uh. So the next thing you know, she's back home and everyone's like chuckling about her bunked out dream and we don't know if the sheriff has lifted the bounty on Toto's head. The movie gave us the song over the Rainbow that won an Oscar for Best Original Song on Hollywood's Biggest Night. I've got a totally
unpopular opinion. I can't stand that Hawaiian guys version of oh yeah yeah, that makes me want to commit crimes anyway. The slippers, the sensible pumps, the kitten heels, they're iconic, iconic. In the book, they's silver, though, but MGM changed the color of the Magical slippers to ruby red, and this would have a much more visual impact on film because color film was really rare when the movie came out in thirty nine. And the color in the movie is,
like I said, a key part of the plot. So in the screenplay you can actually see where the writer crossed out silver and wrote ruby. Oh wow, yeah, these shoes they're covered in glittering red sequins. They're fabulous.
It's kind of like the last time when a technical innovation will actually like meaningfully be used in a movie instead of meaninglessly like Jaws three D when they're like, oh, we just got to throw things at the screen.
D well, I mean I must. It must be sort of like the bullet time and the matrix, like all of a sudden it was everywhere, but then you'd never seen it before and it's so crazy. Yeah, yeah, okay, so we have like the yeah, this changeover to color, these iconic fabulous shoes. Who was the iconic woman who wore the iconic slippers? Miss Judy garlandg mother of Liza Minelli so Garland. She was born Francis Ethel Gumm in
Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in nineteen twenty two. Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Timbertown, population seventy seven hundred. Do you know who else was from Grand Rapids, Minnesota? Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward Clever on Leave It to Beaver. Okay, so in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, there's the Judy Garland Museum. I don't believe there's a Hugh Beaumont museum.
What about it in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In case people get confused, I keep saying, does that two museums?
I kept typing out Grand Rapids Minnesota. So anyway, we know when I was little and I would watch reruns of Leave It to Beaver, you know, come home after school and they got all these reruns on. I thought his name was Hubo Mont.
That's a better name.
I was a very smart child. So Judy Garland Museum. It opened in nineteen seventy five. It describes itself veusly quote. The Judy Garland Museum is home to an eclectic Judy Garland and Wizard of Oz collect Judy's nineteen twenties restored birthplace home the Children's Discovery Museum on two acres of
Minnesota beauty. The museum hosts thoughtfully curated exhibits and artifacts, including the original carriage featured in The Wizard of Oz, a Dorothy Gale test dress worn by Judy Garland, and many personal Judy Garland items collected over the last forty years. Don't forget to take home a souvenir at the museum store.
Old Q tips and.
Collected. It makes it sound like they snuck into her trash. And So Judy Garland died, though I hate to say June twenty second, nineteen sixty nine, a man named Michael Shaw. He bought those ruby slippers in nineteen seventy, a year after she died from costumer Kent Warner. So Michael Shaw buys them. Who is Michael Shaw. I'm glad you asked that. He's an acting coach. He's also the voice of Kit of night Rider.
But on the on the show, not.
On the show, just for the Universal Studios to her, so they couldn't get the same person, so they had they have Michael Shaw to it. He was a child actor at MGM and he played one of the kids in the Halloween scene and Meet Me in Saint Louis, another Judy Garland film. So when traveling to conferences, he would share stories with the audience about his time as a child during the Golden Age of Hollywood, sitting on Judy Garland's lap. Yes, David over there, Yes, I can take this question.
Would he do it in the sound of Kit Kit. I'll take your question, Michael Judy Garland it.
I would hope that he would. I'd be disappointed. But so he's talking about Golden Age Hollywood. He's like sitting on Judy Garland's lap. They watch movies together. She's super nice to all the kids. She's like, you know, takes care of them all. And so Michael Shaw. He's also an avid collector of film memorabilia. He owns a gown from the nineteen thirty eight film Marie Antoinette, Bet you
didn't know that? And the Golden Calf and tablets from Cecil B. De mills nineteen fifty six film The Ten Commandments.
Wow, I wonder if they're like they look gold at all, or if they're right.
It's just all like like beige color. Now, yes, Hollywood, he collects all this stuff. I don't know if it's on display and a home. He refuses, Shaw, it's over his kitchen table. He's got the above, the fireplace is the is the Golden calf, and then the kitchen table has it you know with like it says like gather and then.
The shell command in this house thou shalt not.
So in this house. We watched The Ten Commandments. He didn't He didn't want to tell anyone how much he paid Kent Warner for the Ruby slippers. Quote. I never talk about prices. Okay, okay, it's good for you. However, there were reports that he he paid twenty five hundred dollars for the Ruby slippers. So keep that, keep that ballpark. Okay,
that's good change. And we're talking about yeah, yeah, So Shaw thought of himself as a sort of protector of the slippers and an ambassador to Judy Garland's legacy.
Quote.
I have been given the respectibility of taking care of this pair of shoes, and I'd like to think that Judy is looking down smiling, knowing that her famous pumps are being used for such good causes.
I like theop kids.
Oh totally, so Shaw, He tells this story so many times over the years. This the story I'm going to tell you right now. You ready. He said that he found out at a friend of his was battling aids at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. And this is this is like in the early days of the epidemic, when people thought that they could get it from just like shaking hands. The stigma's incredible. Yeah. So Shaw, he
brings the ruby slippers to this friend's room. He rests the slippers on his friend's chest, and the man goes from absolutely just like terrible anguish and pain to just overcome with joy. And then the friend died a few hours later. That friend, according to Shaw, was Kent Warner, the costumer and former owner of the slippers. Oh wow, So this was like he would tell this to show how important ruby slippers are to people, like I said
icon Nick. When he was working as a Hollywood costumer, Kent Warner found three pairs of prop shoes as well as an off screen test pair of ruby slippers, just you know, in a warehouse season there, oh crap. MGM was getting ready to auction off pieces in costumes like from old movies. So Shaw picks up the slippers as well as Dorothy's Gingham dress, Munchkin costume, and the Wicked Witch of the West hat and her broomstick. He just like gets all the good stuff.
That's a haul.
And so then he sold a pair of the test slippers to that they were the ones that weren't worn in the film. He sells into Debbie Reynolds for three hundred bucks bargain.
She got a deal. Yeah she was a friendly right.
Oh yeah, yeah, there were piles. So then he was going to sell another pair to Reynolds. She wanted to open her own Hollywood memorabilia museum, and like she had an assistant who was there who was helping her with this. So the assistant bought the ruby slippers but kept them for himself. Who was that assistant? Michael Shaw voice of Kit at Universal Studios. Tim Gearing of the Minnesota Monthly
wrote this really good article about this whole escapade. In it, he writes, quote and by all accounts he Warner remained furious with Shaw right up to his death because he'd intended for the slippers to go to Debbie Reynolds. So Michael Shaw made up that whole story about visiting Warner in the hospital. Oh, it's terrible. That's terrible because apparently Warner hated him. There's no way he did this. Everyone's like,
there's absolutely no way. You know, if he visited him on his deathbed, then I'm a flying monkey, says one insider. I don't know who that is. So anyway, we have this like this character Shaw, who's got, you know, gotten his hands on these things. And I'm not so sure it was in the best means. Let's take a break. When we come back, I'm going to tell you a little bit more about these slippers. All right, So Michael Shaw got the ruby slippers supposed to go to Wie Reynolds.
Didn't happen. Warner, though, the costumer, he kept a pair of ruby slippers for himself, and then he gave a pair away to an auctioneer, and he told the auctioneer, these are the only pair of slippers that exist. So, you know, everyone's kind of telling stories around here. They had this multi day auction at MGM where they filmed
The Wizard of Oz. There was another auction that was like marking the end of the glory days of old Hollywood, and it was described as a giant eighteen day wake for Hollywood in the nineteen eighty nine book The Ruby Slippers of Oz. So the ruby slippers that went to auction were apparently the star of the show and they sold for fifteen thousand dollars. Good appreciation on that.
Any way, these are the backups or these are the actual.
These are the backups that he told the auctioneer were the only parent existence. But there are a couple other pairs floating around. So the auction ends, a Memphis resident comes forward to reporters and tells them, guess what I won the authentic ruby slippers in a contest in nineteen forty And then they start putting it all together. There weren't just one pair of ruby slippers. There's a bunch of them. So over time, all these people that are
trying to tabulate it up. It turns out that there are four on screen pairs and one off screen test pair. Rhys Thomas, author of The Ruby Slippers of Oz, quote, these shoes are the holy grail of all Hollywood memorabilia. There isn't anything else that does more to evoke the power of belief.
I wonder if that's still true.
I doubt probably not. So Shaw told this guy quote, the shoes themselves are worthless. It's what they are and what they represent. Okay, so they aren't worthless.
It's the friends say along the way.
Exactly. So there's this appraiser, Laura Woolley of Antiques Road Show. She said, quote, there's a much deeper emotional connection with memorabilia. Most people encounter these objects or develop a fondness for
them in childhood. It sounds like a like a psychological Yeah, it sounds like, you know, they have in childhood, and when you grow up and suddenly you're an adult with money to spend, you can recapture something from you if most of these things kind of turn people back into children, Okay, lady.
I only sounds Funko pops, Yes.
Funko pops.
Yes.
She probably sounds like a totally normal person in my major sound marginally AI Anyway, Thomas, he spent decades researching the history of all these these various pairs of ruby slippers flying around. In nineteen seventy nine, the purchaser of the auction slippers, the one that for fifteen thousand, donated those to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and then a curator at the Smithsonian said that they're kept in a locked case with an alarm, and they're under
twenty four hour guard surveillance. So these these things are to be protected, Dave. They're They're a major part of pretty much, you know. I mean, that's who we are, it's what we believe.
So when people say we're bigger than this, we are talking about those.
Slippers precisely, precisely so this they said that any tampering would immediately send a message to the guard's office. So it's just wired. Can't get in there. That Memphis woman who won the pair in the forties or whatever, she sold them in nineteen eighty eight to a collector at an auction for one hundred and sixty five thousand dollars. That's a come up, Yeah, it is. I mean, she's a good job lady.
Yeah, and she won them, right, she previously she won them.
So now she's got one hundred and sixty five grand. She you know, sells them to this collector. The collector was a huge Garland fan, and that he'd seen her in concert thirty five times and even attended her funeral. And so that person turned around and loaned the ruby slippers to Disney World for display before selling them at auction in two thousand and four six hundred and sixty six thousand dollars.
Wow, and if you're Disney, you're getting some serious rent on the one thing.
Oh totally, totally so six ' six y six k right. A group of collectors and investors, one of the Slipper Consortium, David L. Koubi, said to Newsweek, quote, we were collectors, and for us, that's the ultimate prize. So now, where do they live? In a bank vault? They live in a bank.
Vau Oh perfect, that's exactly where.
There's no place like home. So nineteen eighty one, three years before he died at UCLA Medical Center, most likely not clutching the Ruby slippers, Kurt Warner sold his pair of Ruby slippers at auction for twelve thousand dollars in nineteen eighty one. Then in twenty twelve, the person who bought them sold those for two million, two million dollars million a shoe to a group of people who bought them for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I mean that's like a grand a sequin pretty much.
But you know who is in this group that paid two mil Leo DiCaprio and Steven Spielberg of.
Course, Oh, Steven Spielberg.
Of course you knew Leo and Stevie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I need that.
So twenty eleven, Debbie Reynolds sold her test pair that she did get for six hundred twenty seven thousand at an auction. Those shoes were called the Arabian Test Pair, and they got their name because they had an experimental design with curled toes.
Whoa ooh heillo. Yeah.
So this is what Debbie Reynolds had to say. Quote, I know Judy wore them, and I know she liked them best of all, she said, I want the pair with a pointy toe. Apparently Judy didn't get what Judy wanted. So here's the thing though, Like Dorothy's dress, is that of a simple farm girl gingham for day. And they thought that the Arabian style shoes were just too ornate, as if like sequined pumps aren't. But okay, you know,
I get it. So now that we have a better understanding of the high stakes world of ruby slippers, let's head back to Grand Rapids, Minnesota and the Judy Garland Museum. Dave, close your eyes.
What okay? And now what you do here? I'm picturing it.
I want you to picture it.
Eyes are closed.
It's August twenty eighth, two thousand and five, and you're a haunted porcelain doll sitting on display at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapits, Minnesota.
Oh my god, you.
Were one of one of Judy's childhood favorite toys, maybe because you were haunted even way back then. You sit on your shelf watching judging. It's been a long day at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. But night has fallen and the rest of the haunted items are going about their business, whimpering or plotting to shove a vase to the floor. It's just past two am.
Red round.
Suddenly you hear a commotion at the back of the museum. Then glass breaks. Your creepy glass eyes shift in your haunted porcelain skull to peer at the hallway. A figure approaches the teddy bear next to you, senses trouble, and its eyes begin to glow. You use your esp to tell the bear to knock it off. Well, now is not the time to use your powers to slash the human with a broken bottle. You guys are saving all
that for the uprisings. For now. You and the other haunted Sundrys watch as a person tiptoes into the room. The burglar approaches the plexiglass case directly across the room from you. This should be interesting, you think. The robber gently whistles a tune and lifts a crowbar high above their head. The haunted typewriter begins to slack out some ribbon for a garat no. You signal ever so slightly. That display has been getting all the attention late lately.
Let the criminal do their work with a great force. The burglar brings the crowbar down onto the plexiglass case, splintering it. The haunted random cassette tape stacked in a bookcase hiss, yes, Yes, the large carriage in the next room creaks with delight at the chaos. The burglar hears the noise and freezes dead silence. The person goes back to the job at hand. They gently lift the pair of iconic ruby slippers from the destroyed case and tiptoe
back out. There's much silent chatter among all the haunted items at the museum about who that was and where the slippers would go. Unfortunately, the slippers weren't haunted. There's no way to get a message to them and track them. This is when it pays to be haunted, Dave. Come morning, when the staff opened the museum to the Garland loving public, all hell broke loose. The stolen ruby slippers weren't part
of the museum's permanent collection. They were on loan to the museum, on display for the annual Judy Garland Festival. Who owned these stolen ruby slippers Michael shaw Kit He would often lend the slippers for thousands of dollars to museums to display, and then he would turn around and he said, donate the money to children and charities which he may have. You know, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. This is what he said. Quote, I literally felt like I was hit in the stomach when
I got the call. My knees buckled and I went right to the floor. I had taken care of those shoes for thirty five years. John Miner, who co founded the museum and was also the treasurer. He said quote, I cried. I couldn't believe this happened to us, because it was the stupidest thing.
This is like the most dramatic thing that could happen to the most dramatic people in the world.
Yes, yes, it's so wonderful. I love this so much. Christopher Myers, who was a US attorney in North Dakota. He was somehow involved in the case. I don't know why he was working in Minnesota whatever. So quote there's a certain romance in these types of schemes and sometimes sophistication, but at the end of the day, it's theft. These types of offenses not only deprived the owner of their property, but all of us. This type of cultural property is
important to us as a society. It reflects culture, It holds our memories, it reflects our values. He's totally running for office, right like he's running, baby, I mean.
People would not even know that the ruby slippers were gone. First of all, there's like a million pairs of them. And second of all, right, like everyone has that copy of Life magazine with a picture of them, and that's all they need in their lips they need.
They're done. So there are the slippers, the ones that bring so much joy uniting our culture. They are sitting in the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and then all of a sudden, they're not. Shaw had declined the museum's offer to store the Ruby slippers in a vault because he said he didn't like the idea that the guards would be touching these shoes on a daily basis. He said all he cared about was having security, even
just like as a baseline. So there was no security camera footage of the break in and no fingerprints, just a lone speck of red sequin left behind. The museum did have both an alarm system and video surveillance equipment, but neither one we're working at the time of the burglary.
Inside job.
That's exactly job. Oh everyone's saying it's an inside job. Well, here's what the museum said. They said that they told the alarm company to turn off the alarm during the day because museum visitors kept using the back door. So instead of saying do not open, like just give him free egress out the back, turn off the alarm. So and because the thing is is like when the alarm would go off, it would alert the police, and then if you have enough false alarms, they start charging you
in the medium couldn't afford it. So the alarm company was like, that's totally not what happened. We were told to disable the alarm completely, not just during the day. And then with CCTV, everyone knew. They turned the CCTV off at night save energy. What I don't know, it's like peak hours. Who knows.
I feel like when you know, when Indiana Jones said just belongs in a museum, this is not what he had in mind.
No, this is.
Totally not animly. So the museum director, John kel She said, quote everyone knew we didn't have any security staff. Michael Shaw knew that. It's just sad that it happened here. It is like, yeah, everyone knew. It's just so sad. There was like people thought that the ruby slippers were actually a fake pair that was set up to be quote stolen, and that Shaw paid someone in the museum to kind of like facilitate this whole thing, you know,
insurance money and all Shaw totally denies this. There's this private investigator, Kip Alexander Kyp.
Now I'm picturing Kip from Futurama.
Kip Alexander. This is what he said. Quote. There's a lot of theories surrounding this. You could say there's as many as Area fifty one had as far as conspiracies or theories. There's a lot of distrust and distaste left in their mouth, for sure. So he's putting it on par with Area fifty one.
He's just speaking directly to like the History Channel special right now, completely.
Completely And what did Shaw say about all this? Don't forget Shaw voice of kit quote, I'm so furious that the slippers are gone. It's very frustrating that they haven't caught that obsessed, fanatic, selfish bastard who stole them. Shaw And there was a theory swirling around this is I love. I don't know how this theory came to life, but I love it, and I feel like I would have started it as a rumor if I lived in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
A lot of people thought that the theft was pulled off by teenagers who are just trying to pull a plant a prank, and then they panicked and threw the slippers away, but not just away away.
So like ten years, well, wait ten years, that's what happened to those baseball uniforms in that other ridiculous cross That is true.
Maybe they're yeah, I don't know, maybe they're onto something. But like, so, ten years after the theft, all these crowds gathered along the shoreline of the Tioga Mine Pitt Lake. Why what does that have to do with ruby slippers?
Day? Yah? What does that have? Slippers?
Lizabeth?
The good folks were there to watch the Ataska County Sheriffs off his don scuba gear and dive in search of the ruby slippers the old quarry, so that there was a fear that the thieves threw them in the lake, and the lake had depths of up to two hundred and twenty five feet. So Morgan White is a filmmaker who's working on a documentary called The Slippers, is one of the people who's totally convinced that the teens did it. Quote all signs seem to point to the fact that
these kids did it. They're probably sitting at the bottom of the mind pit and nobody will ever see them again.
Now, were there specific kids who he said when he says these kids.
Yeah, I think I couldn't tell. I think they had their eye on a couple kids. But I have news for you, Dave. The ruby slippers were not found in the Tioga mine pit lake.
Oh thank god, the ruin totally.
So this private donor in Arizona finds out, Okay, look that the slippers aren't in the lake. We're getting to be this is ridiculous. Someone needs to put a stop to it. I offer a million dollar for the recovery of the ruby slippers, A million dollars on the barrelhead. This announcement that it went in The Guardian, the New York Times, US Weekly, I mean US Weekly, the Magazine
of Record, Washington Post. So this this donor like originally was like, yeah, I'll do phone interviews, you know, that's cool, but then at the last minute would cancel the Rhys Thomas believes that the one who wrote the book that believes that the museum faked that anonymous donor to get publicity because they were getting another Oz item in. So they're like, okay, we just got the horse drawn carriage that was apparently it used to be owned by Abraham
Lincoln before it became a movie prop. So there the carriage in the Wizard of Oz apparently was originally owned by Abraham Lincoln, which is like totally glossed over in all this.
Yeah. Yeah, for one thing, that's a real historical relic, right right. That another thing, yeah, like I'm not trusting this museum with anything ever again.
Yeah exact, Yeah, you're gonna roll that in there. It's like, yeah, people go out of there. Okay, So the museum, like, you know, Thomas says, I think you faked it because you just want people to know about you have this cool carriage. The museum told Newsweek that they would provide a notarized letter from the attorney of the anonymous donor if he wished to push, you know, whether or not they existed. Everyone gave up? Who cares?
Who knows?
Who cares? There's a bakery in Minneapolis called the I don't even know how to say this. You know, here's the thing. I come across these words and I'm guaranteed to say the wrong version of it.
Yes, and I don't care.
I don't care.
People correct me. I'm like, you know, at the end of the day, I don't care. It's w U L L E T wallets, you know, wallets. Anyway, they sold cakes that had the ruby slippers on it, and then in icing they wrote reward one million dollars, like just to keep the magic alive David's part of the culture. The Marriott offered a reward of one million Marriott Rewards.
Points, which is like worth twenty bucks.
It's worth twelve five hundred dollars to anyone who found the ruby slippers by August thirty first, a few weeks shy of the tenth anniversary of the theft.
Now probably like just before they expire, like the expired.
After they shut the whole rewards program down. An insurance company offered a two hundred thousand dollars reward. A board member of the museum contributed fifty k to a reward. They say that they got about a thousand calls regarding the whereabouts of the ruby slippers. A yard sale in Virginia stapled to a restaurant wall in Missouris. Yeah, it could be. There were claims that a radio station in New Hampshire was giving them away as a prize. Can't
trust New Hampshire. In twenty eleven, law enforcement noticed a pair of ruby slippers in a home in San Francisco when they were responding to a home burglary.
No no, I mean, see, it doesn't even seem.
But here's the thing. Like, so the cops go into this house and they're like, oh, cool, ruby slippers, and someone's like, I heard about the theft. You have to say something.
Yeah, those individual officers wanted the rewards.
They got a search warrant after being told like the home but the homeowners like, you know what, those were a gift from a past lover, and so they're all right, never mind. So but they these things have a serial number on them, and it didn't match the missing pair. How do they have serial numbers whatever? So how many
pairs are out there? At one point someone did come forward claiming to know about these stolen slippers and how they could be returned, but it turned out it was just someone trying to, you know, extort the insurance company. By two thousand and nine, case was called no Leads, No clues. The cops were like, you know, it's not
really a priority right now. Four months after the robbery, Essex Insurance Company took Shaw, the museum, and the museum director to court, claiming the insurance policy was voided by the museum because they didn't disclose changes to their security measures. Shaw said of this quote the insurance company, they investigated me upside down, inside out. They realized I had nothing to do with it, and basically the museum knew it too. They were reaching its straws to try and throw the
guilt away from themselves. So all these years later, the parties settled in two thousand and seven. Shaw got eight hundred thousand dollars out of it. He said, quote, I'm still furious for so many people. They represented home, love and childhood and security. That's what people saw when they looked at the slippers. And now they're gone, gone, but not forgotten. So the FBI Art Crime Unit and agents from Atlanta, Chicago, and Miami, they went undercover because they
had to lead a strong one. This sting operation was set. One of them took them all the way to Minneapolis. Let's take a break. When we come back, I'm going to tell you how this went down.
Gotta know, all right, Dave.
When we left off, the FBI was about to solve the case of the missing Ruby slippers. I can't wait the sting operation in Minneapolis, remember that. Sure, it was a success. On September fourth, two thousand and nine, the FBI announced the stolen Ruby slippers were recovered and taken to the Smithsonian for authentication. No suspects were named at the time, and officials asked that anyone with any information please contact the FBI. So I'm guessing they kind of
changed hands the recovered Ruby slippers. They were put on display in a clear case for reporters to photograph during a press conference. So they like paraded them out.
It's like when they put all the cash and the drugs on the table.
They fanned out all nicely like this. No, you know what, it's too symmetrical.
Can we get some more cleague lights in here?
Yeah, they have like ring lights on the pilot cash. So they wheel them out. They were guarded by FBI officials who would tell people, you know, don't get too close to the glass. This is evidence, you know, hey, give it some distance, So click them heels and fast forward.
Fourteen years. On Tuesday May fifteenth, twenty twenty three, Terry Martin, a seventy six year old Minnesotan who lived twelve miles south of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, was indicted by a grand jury for one count of theft of a major artwork. Wow, he stole the Ruby Slippers nearly eighteen years prior, And well, no it wasn't. It was a seventy six year old man, and I guess he was like in his late fifties at the point.
So those little tappers they're now worth an estimated three point five million dollars.
Do you think being lost made them more valuable?
Oh? It has to have. And they're called quote, an object of cultural heritage from the care, custody or control of a museum. So it's like this is museum quality. It's like I've ever seen antiques road show when someone wheels something out and they're like, oh, no, this actually has to be in a museum. We can't put a dollar amount on it, Like yeah, yeah, yeah. So the indictment made people wonder if did this seventy six year old Minnesota did he act alone? Was he hired by organized crime.
Why does he hate America?
Why does he hate the culture in America? This is what the guy had to say to the Minnesota Star Tribune quote, I gotta go on trial. I don't want to talk to you. God bless my kind of guy. So this is a great name. Seaword Darby. Say word, Say word again again? S E S E Y W A R D say word sword, Say word Darby. This person is the co host of the podcast No Place Like Home. So like, I don't want a turf step
on another. Respect respect you, respect mad respect quote. There was a strong suspicion that there was a quote local connection to the crime, someone with knowledge of the museum, in fact, that the slippers were on loan there in the summer of two thousand and five, and how easy they were to steal. What's interesting is that Martin is just one piece of the puzzle. Over the thirteen years the slippers were missing, it is possible, likely even that
they exchanged hands. So that's a deep dive if you're interested in No Place Like Home. Rhys Thomas, the author, quote, I have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg. I don't think a single individual would have been have opportunistically grabbed the shoes and then sat on them for thirteen years and then gotten himself involved in an extortion case.
What I just deep.
It goes deep, Dave, It goes so much deeper than you know.
Like, there's no so he really he walks out the back door one day at the museum. He's like, oh, there's no alarm here, and realizes he could probably just walk out with some slippers.
He'd totally they totally fit him.
Yeah, Like he goes back or he gets home and he's like, honey, slipper fence, slipper fence. He's like looking at his Yellow Pages and he realizes there's no such thing as a slipper fence.
Oh well, when he got him, and he got him for his wife, his wife is like these don't fit. Well okay, well just I'll take him back and he just shoves him in the closet. So the pair of ruby slippers that were stolen are technically not a true pair. The left and right shoes are different sizes, and they actually are mates to the left and right ruby slippers on display at the Smithsonian. It's weird. Do you know, do you know that those are one of the most
asked about artifacts there. I didn't know that, like where are the ruby slippers? Like hey, hey, where are the ruby slippers? And over there, sir, like that's the most asked question at the Smithsonian. So they made several pairs of these for filming. As we know, we many now believe that the original total was seven, and that includes one pair that was originally chewed up by Toto. Some I thing I can vouch is an action of a
car and terrier. Like I have to say that my dog passed away at the end of December twenty two at the age of fifteen, and I'd had him since he was three months old. His name was Elliott, and we counted him as one of the internsier. I loved bless up Elliott. I liked I liked to blame things on him in this show, and like sometimes I get wistful thinking about what he chewed up when he was
a young pup, baseboards, legs of chairs. He once chewed a hole in a purse that I had to get to a cookie in there instead of like going in through the top. So anyway, so when I hear about Toto chewing up a pair of iconic ruby slippers. I kind of like that, Like puppies remind us that things are just things, right, they're impermanent, and then we get older and they remind us that they and we are impermanent too. So it's all stuff. It's just stuff, And
that's why I love these kind of crimes. It's just stuff. So they may be like part of the culture and we're three million dollars, but at the end of the day, it's just stuff. So ruby slippers. Only three pairs are said to have survived. Of the seven. The stolen hair was what's known as the quote traveling pair, and they were made from a dozen different pieces of material that included glass, plastic, gelatine, silk, threading, wood, pulp. Okay, I
don't know. So the majority, like the ruby coloring, really came from the sequins, but they were like bows on them that were red glass beads, and the show's traveling pair were actually burgundy, not ruby red, because that would have come out as bright orange in technicolor, and so the pair was the one. The stolen ones are the ones used for close up shots when Dorothy clicked her
heels together. Shaw said they were absolutely beautiful, and he would only handle them while wearing white gloves like he worked at Sephora. It wasn't until after the stolen pairs were recovered that it was learned that they were mismatched twins of the pair at the Smithsonium. So the Ruby slippers are still in custody with the authorities, just like Funko Batman. They can't be returned to their owner in this case Shaw, because Shah got that insurance payout. So yeah, insurance,
just like Bunco Batman. So the insurance company is the legal owner. Shaw is at peace with this quote. There's more to my life than a pair of pumps. I have no desire to have them again. After years of bringing joy and happiness to so many thousands and thousands of people by being able to see them. Now to me, they're a nightmare. I'm not going to talk about it anymore. I'm sick of it. They're gone. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a dance. Wait now, he yeah, he's amazing.
Janey Heights the executive director of the Judy Garland Museum. There are so many levels, there's like different director levels, and whatever she wants the recovered ruby slippers to stay in federal custody as case evidence, and then hopes that they can be like eventually returned to the museum. So like slippery way to get around to having them back at the museum. Quote, it's such an iconic item that means so much to so many people. And she said
that it, you know, represents home and a sense of place. Quote, it would be a shame for them to stay in a locked case for the rest of time, So let's send them to the zero security level. Judy Garland Museum and Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She said she can find no connection between Martin and the museum and that everyone at the museum is quote a little bit speechless that someone was charged. Almost two decades later, Tim Gerring I mentioned him Minnesota Monthly. I'm going to let him send us
off here with some really incredible observations. This is a long quote, but it's worth it. Quote Throughout her famously up and down career, which ended Elvis style in nineteen sixty nine an accidental overdose of sleeping pills rigor Mortis in the London bathroom. Garland was particularly admired by gay men. She was less guarded than most stars, and they were drawn to this brassy candor. After all, being unguarded wasn't an option for gay men in Garland's day. They could
only long, like Dorothy to live in technicolor. They secretly referred to themselves as friends of Dorothy and took solace in Garland's apparent sympathy, not least perhaps because two of
her five husbands turned out to be gay. Quote if you're afraid to love, if you're afraid to feel emotion, you can't know Judy Garland, one fan tells me, aids took an outsized bite of Garland's fan base, and as gay culture, once closely associated with the cult of Garland, is increasingly assimilated into the mainstream, fewer young gay men
are picking up the torch. In the world of celebrity memorabilia, the failure to recover the Ruby Slippers has conjured no little trepidation, A fear that people aren't taking the icon's disappearance seriously, fear that the magic is finally wearing off. If the Slippers lose their hold on the American imagination, what other cultural mementos might we deem disposable. It's an American national treasure that's been stolen, and no one gives a damn, cries Brian Cummings, a New York appraiser of
celebrity memorabilia. It blows my mind to know that they're still out there. Yet in the new status of stolen property, the slippers feel more real than they have in years. They are mere objects again to be lost or found, and perhaps that is for the best. The old movie studios we know now were never in the business of making magic so much as illusions. Stars like Garland were fed pills and cigarettes by their studio bosses and stage
moms to control their weight. They were products as manufactured as the props from the stage names to their public lives created for them by studio publicity departments. To treasure Hollywood memorabilia is to value fantasy over this harsh reality, to ignore the man behind the curtain.
Wow, brav right, I mean home.
Yeah, it's an amazing article, Dave, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Oh man? Can I first I want to thank the Academy. I've been waiting for this moment forever, you know. I think it's interesting and that quote really brought it home. Like these slippers are far more meaningful to the gay community than they could possibly be to quote America rit
law Arge. In fact, I feel like those two things are almost intention because like what Judy Garland means to that culture is different than what Judy Garland means, which is you know equally yeah yeah yeah, And it really like speaks to a struggle in a way that Judy Garland, this like amazing pop star, movie star and musical star, isn't really representative of a struggle for like most of America. She's just like the pinnacle of Hollywood magic. And so
like in that context, I get it. And it's almost like in that context, things like like this should be owned by that community and like instead of being you know, locked away in a museum somewhere, Like I'm glad they're home, and I get why it's a big deal that they were missing.
Yeah, but I love the idea that tying it in with in The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy gets to go to Oz and be brave and create her own family and community, and like the thing is to live in technicolor, to like have all these options and brilliance around her, and so reading that really kind of drove it home the importance of it, so you know, I make fun of it. It's not important to me, but that doesn't make it not important.
Yeah, I mean I hate I'm just gonna kind of.
Like, who do I But you know, don't tell anyone I.
Can get down with the shoes like I get it.
Yeah, yeah, I totally get it. I totally get it. So that's it. That's all I have for you today. You do you like it?
It was awesome, Elizabeth, Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We have t shirts if you're into that sort of thing. Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. We don't look at those. Leave a talkback on the iHeart app.
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Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Dave Cousten and sometimes Aaron Burnett, produced and edited by the Great Oz Dave Cousten. Research is by Marissa Brown, The Goodwitch and the Wickedest Witch of the Southeast, Andrea's song Sharpened Tear. The theme song is by Lollipop Guild Ambassadors Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive producers are cowardly Lyon Ben Bollen and Tin Man, Noel.
Brown, Ridicous Crime, Say It one More Timequeous Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.