The ruby-red slippers that Dorothy wore in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ played by Judy Garland, were stolen during a museum robbery, and a US man has admitted to the theft.
The rubies that Terry Jon Martin thought were genuine gems were revealed to be made of glass by a jewelry fence, a person who purchases stolen goods. His lawyer informed the Associated Press that his 76-year-old client was currently in terrible condition and “facing his own mortality.” Only four genuine pairs of the 1939 movie’s shoes are still in existence. The main character, Dorothy, returns from the Land of Oz to her hometown of Kansas by clicking her heels three times and saying, “There’s no place like home.”
The shoes were lent by Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw in 2005 to the Judy Garland Museum in the late actress’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Martin, a resident of nearby Duluth, took a sledgehammer to the museum’s emergency escape and grabbed the object from its plexiglass-encased display pedestal, thinking the rubies were genuine gemstones. The object was insured for $1 million (£824,000). However, Martin told a federal judge on Friday that after learning the rubies were fake from a buyer of stolen items, he “didn’t want anything to do with them.” He wasn’t officially implicated in the crime until 13 years later when an FBI art crime squad recovered the slippers in a sting operation after a guy approached the insurer and claimed he could assist in getting them back.
Martin was charged with a crime in May, and federal prosecutors added that the slippers’ current market value was nearly $3.5 million. The robber was shown on camera by local media approaching the federal courthouse in Duluth on Friday while using a wheelchair, wearing a paper mask, and toting an oxygen tank. Before the hearing, Martin’s lawyer, Dane DeKrey, told the AP that despite being in terrible health, Martin had cooperated with him.
“I believe Terry is confronting the reality of his own mortality, and in such moments of life, people tend to dispense with formalities and get straight to the point,” he went on to say. Martin, who was previously found guilty in 1988 of receiving stolen goods, is free until his sentencing, which has not yet been scheduled. His attorney has stated that the federal sentence guidelines call for eight to ten years in prison.
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