Dorothy’s ruby slippers, stolen 13 years ago, have been found
It’s taken far more than three clicks of the heels to bring the ruby slippers back home.
Thirteen years ago, the famed red-sequined heels from the “Wizard of Oz” were mysteriously stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn. With no fingerprints or security camera footage, police were left with few clues as to who broke through an entrance out back and smashed the plexiglass box holding the shoes. The only thing left behind: a lone red sequin.
Now, the hunt is over. The FBI announced Tuesday that the stolen slippers have been found, though no suspects were immediately revealed.
For many years, local, federal and private investigators pursued a variety of theories, eventually offering a $1 million reward for locating the shoes, one of four known pairs worn by Garland in the 1939 classic movie.
Dozens of leads came in after the reward was announced — but none of them seemed to bring investigators closer to solving the crime.
At the time of their theft Aug. 28, 2005, the shoes were on loan to the museum from a collector in North Hollywood, California.
“These shoes are the holy grail of all Hollywood memorabilia,” said Rhys Thomas, the author of “The Ruby Slippers of Oz,” who has tracked the case closely for years. “There isn’t anything else that does more to evoke the power of belief.”
In the “Wizard of Oz,” the shoes have the power to transport Dorothy back home to Kansas, if she clicks them three times and repeats the movie’s iconic phrase, “There’s no place like home.”
The slippers had a complicated history even before the theft. They belonged to collector Michael Shaw, who bought them for $2,000 in 1970 from Kent Warner, a costumer who found them on an MGM lot at the time. Shaw’s collection also included Dorothy’s dress, the witch’s hat, and a Munchkin outfit. For years, Shaw lent the shoes to museums for several thousand dollars, often donating the proceeds to children’s charities.
The Judy Garland Museum displayed the shoes in 2005 during an annual festival celebrating the actress, who was born in Grand Rapids.
The left and right shoes are slightly different sizes and appear to be the mates of another mixed pair housed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The Smithsonian took its shoes off public display in 2017 and launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore them. The condition of the purloined pair could not be immediately learned.