Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: So we went around iHeart Security and we broke into
Speaker 2: the building. You can't stop, you know, But what happens
Speaker 2: if they find us?
Speaker 3: Oh prob I shouldn't record this part then huh crap,
Speaker 3: that's too late.
Speaker 2: It's oh whatever, Well, because we have to do this
Speaker 2: by ourselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll say this is an act.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is all a big joke.
Speaker 3: Didn't happen.
Speaker 2: So you probably remember that we aired an episode on
Speaker 2: June twenty ninth, twenty three called Slip Sliding Away the
Speaker 2: theft of Judy Garland's ruby slippers. Oh hell yeah, right,
Speaker 2: what fun time we had that you weren't even there.
Speaker 3: I wasn't just laughing.
Speaker 2: It was great. So the story it wrapped up with
Speaker 2: the latest development at the time when I told producer
Speaker 2: Dave about it. On Tuesday May fifteenth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: this seventy six year old dude in Minnesota named Terry Martin.
Speaker 2: He got indicted for one count of theft of a
Speaker 2: major artwork in the shoes.
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 2: So that was you know, that's how I closed it out,
Speaker 2: and that you know, the slippers that, of course, were
Speaker 2: stolen from the Judy Garland Museum, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, August
Speaker 2: twenty eight, two thousand and five.
Speaker 3: We need to get our tickets, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, So the ones that were recovered Interesting Operation, Minnesota,
Speaker 2: September two thousand and nine. So, for whatever reason, twenty
Speaker 2: two years after the heist, fourteen years after the slippers
Speaker 2: were recovered, Old Terry gets busted. And you know, he
Speaker 2: pleaded guilty to the heist five months after his indictment
Speaker 2: October twenty twenty three. He showed up for sentencing in
Speaker 2: January twenty twenty four in a wheelchair and on supplementary oxygen.
Speaker 2: Judge took pity on him and he was sentenced to
Speaker 2: time served. They're like, you know, your life is hellish enough.
Speaker 2: And he had a long history of burglary and receiving
Speaker 2: stolen property. So his attorney, this guy Dane Decraye. He's
Speaker 2: lawyer Decraye, Dane of the Craze. Uh so he he
Speaker 2: was like, Terry was trying to just pull off one
Speaker 2: last score.
Speaker 3: I do declare I'm Dane de Crag so I'm still
Speaker 3: hung up on.
Speaker 2: That de cray Z. So Terry, he was like guys
Speaker 2: trying to just pull off one last score. And he
Speaker 2: uses the phrase one last score after an old buddy
Speaker 2: his with mob ties told him where the shoes were,
Speaker 2: and then that the mob guy was like, Terry, all
Speaker 2: that sparkle on the shoes, that's from real jewels. Terry
Speaker 2: believed him, the mob aphiliate guy, He's like, that's why
Speaker 2: they're so valuable, taby, Terry's like a lot. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, neither of these guys understood the precious nature
Speaker 2: of nostalgia or cultural currency, or fame or sentiment. So
Speaker 2: Terry took the shoes so like took him to his
Speaker 2: fence zing and then fence broke it to Terry that
Speaker 2: the rubies were actually glass. So Terry rid himself.
Speaker 3: Of the slippers. Did he explain the value of Judy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he broke out into song and yeah, it was
Speaker 2: it was beautiful.
Speaker 3: This is where the value comes.
Speaker 2: He was like, hold on a second, clang clang clang. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So Terry got rid of those slippers. But his attorney
Speaker 2: was like, I'm not going to tell you how, why, where, when? Yeah,
Speaker 2: but that's not the end. So December seventh is a
Speaker 2: day that will live in infamy. Saren not just because
Speaker 2: it's the day that our nation came under attack in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty one, kicking off our involvement in World War two.
Speaker 3: Ah, yes, bro Harbor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just this year, December seventh, twenty twenty four. Uh huh,
Speaker 2: those iconic ruby slippers sold at auction. Really, Heritage Auctions
Speaker 2: was running things. They figured the slippers would get about
Speaker 2: three million at auction.
Speaker 3: Three million.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Online bidding opened in November of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: All right, online bidding, I missed my window.
Speaker 2: Go on, you totally did. The top bid hung at
Speaker 2: about like one point five to five million before live
Speaker 2: bidding began on the afternoon of December seventh. Right, so
Speaker 2: within minutes, the top bid was almost ten million dollars.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, more than triple the estimated final bid.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was just doing that matter right, I could
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: So the phone bids, they're coming in fast. The callers
Speaker 2: are one upping each other. It's climbing. It's like sane, yeah,
Speaker 2: really quickly. For fifteen minutes. When all was sudden done,
Speaker 2: the winning bid emerged twenty eight million dollars. Whoa for
Speaker 2: a pair of busted up slippers.
Speaker 3: That's the value of Judy Garland.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and then you factor in the auction house's
Speaker 2: feet final bill thirty two point five million dollars.
Speaker 3: Could you help me pick my job back up?
Speaker 2: Auction house is making bank house. We totally do. Who
Speaker 2: was the winning bidder?
Speaker 3: Who was Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: None other than Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: I'm totally kidding.
Speaker 3: Ah, thank you.
Speaker 2: The shoes were his size. Now the actual winner.
Speaker 3: iHeart he was going to send him into Mars. He
Speaker 3: was right at the plan.
Speaker 2: Iheartradiown nice as a holiday gift for us.
Speaker 3: You are all still kidding.
Speaker 2: I have one hundred percent kidding. The buyer wanted to
Speaker 2: remain anonymous. Oh that update out of the way. Let's
Speaker 2: take a trip down the yellow brick memory lane and
Speaker 2: listen to me show exactly why I'm universally known as
Speaker 2: America's sweetheart and captivate you with the tale of the
Speaker 2: stolen Ruby Slippers. David City, Elizabeth Dunton, Hey, how Dave?
Speaker 2: The others? Aaron? How are you today?
Speaker 4: I'm all right, I'm sweating a little bit.
Speaker 2: Good, okay, same. You know it's ridiculous, I do, Oh
Speaker 2: you do?
Speaker 4: Do you know anything about how crazy McDonald Land is.
Speaker 2: No, it's like McDonald land in actual place or like
Speaker 2: the fictional universe of it.
Speaker 4: Like imagine you know the origins of where McDonald land
Speaker 4: came from.
Speaker 2: Okay, No, I don't know anything about this.
Speaker 4: Well, first, it comes out of Willard Scott's work as
Speaker 4: Boza the Clown. He's the original Ron McDonald right right.
Speaker 4: And McDonald's goes to an ad agency. Of course, this
Speaker 4: was like it used to be. It's now DDB. It
Speaker 4: used to be Needham, Harper and Steers. They're like, hey,
Speaker 4: can you make us like a whole thing out of this,
Speaker 4: just like do a whole thing. Yeah, and they're like, okay.
Speaker 4: So the first commercial comes in nineteen seventy one and
Speaker 4: at this time, you know the purple dude Grimace. Yeah,
Speaker 4: back then his name, his official government name is Evil Grimace.
Speaker 2: Oh you're kidding me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they're like, we need a land, a mythical, mystical
Speaker 2: land surrounding our Hammurgers. Let's have an evil character.
Speaker 4: Involved, not just one, there's like multiple the Hamburglar and
Speaker 4: you've got Captain Crook at the time, who you know,
Speaker 4: like you can't miss the name all their whole thing
Speaker 4: is all like shoplifting, and Ronald stops them from shoplifting,
Speaker 4: and so that's supposed to get you into the restaurants.
Speaker 2: Okay, running from shoplifters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like I don't know, Like, are you like, oh
Speaker 4: that that must be in high demand because people keep
Speaker 4: five fingering all their food. But like, just to give
Speaker 4: you a sense of how weird the whole thing was
Speaker 4: in seventy one. In seventy three, Sid and marty Croft,
Speaker 4: those of you know hr puff and stuff, and like
Speaker 4: Siden marty Croft's World of was like World of Puppets
Speaker 4: in Atlanta, which was before CNN Center was CNN Center
Speaker 4: was in that building. Anyway, they did some real trippy stuff, right.
Speaker 4: They sued McDonald's successfully. They got a fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 4: settlement and then it was appealed and they got a
Speaker 4: million dollar settlement from McDonald because the McDonald's stuff looked
Speaker 4: too much like the Croft's hr puffin stuff.
Speaker 3: Weird stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh, I had no idea.
Speaker 4: But that's not the only weird thing.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: Oh, so Evil Grimace. Much later people are trying to
Speaker 4: find out like, hey, what is Grimace? Right? This has
Speaker 4: been like even before the Internet. There was lore of, like, well,
Speaker 4: what the hell is Grimace?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, the gum drop.
Speaker 4: As far as we can tell from official McDonald's spokesperson
Speaker 4: Official McDonald's Twitter account, they said, quote, Uh, are you
Speaker 4: ready for this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I'm totally ready.
Speaker 4: Grimace Lare says he is the embodiment of a milkshake
Speaker 4: or a taste bud.
Speaker 2: Oh, grim is a taste bun.
Speaker 4: How gross is that?
Speaker 2: That's so disgusting? But is there a bunch of Grimace
Speaker 2: stuff out now? Like?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he's hitting it big now for some reason?
Speaker 2: Is there a shake? Is there a Grimace Shake?
Speaker 4: Well, Grimace's uncle, Grimsumple's name is O Grimacy. Uh, and
Speaker 4: he's the one promoting the Shamrock Shake.
Speaker 2: This is Irish slander over here.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if, like, is is O Grimacy
Speaker 4: like a bad taste bud? And that's why he's promoting
Speaker 4: the Shamrock shake and Grimace is like a pretty good
Speaker 4: taste bud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if you're drinking a Grimace shake? Is
Speaker 2: there a Grimace Shake? Why do I feel like there is?
Speaker 2: I keep thinking I see this stuff on social media.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty one, This is the Shamrock the grimacy shake.
Speaker 2: So it's basically liquefied taste buds, is what you're trying
Speaker 2: to say to me, David.
Speaker 4: Well, what freaks me out is like, imagine you're a
Speaker 4: little kid and you're just going to hug this big
Speaker 4: purple thing and it's a taste bud, like.
Speaker 2: You taste saliva on someone's tongue. Yeah, because then is
Speaker 2: this just an independent taste bud or an invisible tongue.
Speaker 4: It leaves a lot of questions.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of questions about the McDonald's universe.
Speaker 2: But that is ridiculous, pretty ridiculous, Right, that's ridiculous. You
Speaker 2: want to know what else is ridiculous? I would stealing
Speaker 2: sequined shoes. Ooh, this is ridiculous. Crime A podcast about
Speaker 2: absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety
Speaker 2: nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 4: That's fact check.
Speaker 2: Totally, Dave. You've seen the movie The Wizard of Oz, right.
Speaker 4: Uh, yeah, and I've seen the Whiz so sure.
Speaker 2: But like Wizard of Oz, the original came out in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, it was still really popular when I
Speaker 2: was a kid.
Speaker 4: Originally in black and white right, and they had to
Speaker 4: colorize it later.
Speaker 2: That's part of the whole thing in the film is that,
Speaker 2: like when she goes to, oh yeah, the other side,
Speaker 2: it's color right. So but it was like a spectacular
Speaker 2: it was. It was incredible, Like it used to come
Speaker 2: on TV once a year and like I'd get all excited.
Speaker 2: I don't think young people these days are as familiar
Speaker 2: with Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 4: They could just tell him the creepy urban myth, yeah right,
Speaker 4: that would get them.
Speaker 2: Well, So here, I think cable pushed the Wizard of
Speaker 2: Oz out of the mainstream. That's my theory because like
Speaker 2: in my house, we were really really late adopters of cable,
Speaker 2: so we were still relying on like network movies. But
Speaker 2: I feel like it kind of fell off sometime, like
Speaker 2: I don't know, in the nineties. It's just it's just
Speaker 2: it's it's not just me. Our researcher Andrea. She mentioned
Speaker 2: it too that kids these days don't seem to know
Speaker 2: the media that like we or our parents or our
Speaker 2: grandparents knew. Like the Internet gives us too much choice,
Speaker 2: is what she was. She was thinking kind.
Speaker 4: Of like when when I was little and we finally
Speaker 4: got HBO, and they showed Savannah smiles over and over
Speaker 4: and over again. I don't know why it's not a
Speaker 4: good movie. I think it's like one of the O'Neills
Speaker 4: or something. But yeah, I hear it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just it murders it. So we don't do
Speaker 2: murder here. Zaren. He actually talks about this sometimes that
Speaker 2: like each generation seems to have a shorter and shorter
Speaker 2: range of historical or cultural knowledge. So keeping that in
Speaker 2: mind anyway. The Wizard of Oz the movie is based
Speaker 2: on a book by L. Frank Baum called The Wonderful
Speaker 2: Wizard of Oz and that was written in nineteen hundred
Speaker 2: and In the movie, Dorothy Gale lives in Kansas with
Speaker 2: her aunt and uncle. Some ladygoon in town wants to
Speaker 2: have Dorothy's dog, Toto put down, and it's a cairen terrier.
Speaker 2: And I can tell you that they are an acquired taste.
Speaker 4: Did you say, did you say a carring terrier.
Speaker 2: A cairen like c A I R N.
Speaker 4: Got it.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's of Scottish origin, a terrier. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: and they're just nasty little dogs for the most part.
Speaker 2: But Toto, he didn't deserve a visit to the executioner.
Speaker 2: My mom had a car and terrier named Finn, who
Speaker 2: could be such a jerk but then super sweet. And
Speaker 2: I have a scar on my shin from where he
Speaker 2: bit me once, but I probably deserved it anyway.
Speaker 4: That's how I feel about my dog bites too, Right.
Speaker 2: You're like, I pushed the wrong buttons. So Dorothy, she
Speaker 2: legs it with Toto and gets caught in a tornado,
Speaker 2: wakes up in the Land of Oz. Her house landed
Speaker 2: on one of the batties, the Wicked Witch of the East,
Speaker 2: and then Dorothy helps herself to the witch's red ruby
Speaker 2: slippers heads off to get help returning home from the
Speaker 2: Great oz Over in Emerald City. So that's just brief recap.
Speaker 2: The slippers are the key to her being able to
Speaker 2: get home. She has to tap her heels together three
Speaker 2: times and say, there's no place like him. You remember that, Rainelle.
Speaker 4: It was always a little confusing because like the ruby slippers,
Speaker 4: but she's they got heels right.
Speaker 2: They got heels, ye, yeah, yeah, they're like little you know,
Speaker 2: sensible pumps. Uh. So the next thing you know, she's
Speaker 2: back home and everyone's like chuckling about her bunked out
Speaker 2: dream and we don't know if the sheriff has lifted
Speaker 2: the bounty on Toto's head. The movie gave us the
Speaker 2: song over the Rainbow that won an Oscar for Best
Speaker 2: Original Song on Hollywood's Biggest Night. I've got a totally
Speaker 2: unpopular opinion. I can't stand that Hawaiian guys version of
Speaker 2: oh yeah yeah, that makes me want to commit crimes anyway.
Speaker 2: The slippers, the sensible pumps, the kitten heels, they're iconic, iconic.
Speaker 2: In the book, they's silver, though, but MGM changed the
Speaker 2: color of the Magical slippers to ruby red, and this
Speaker 2: would have a much more visual impact on film because
Speaker 2: color film was really rare when the movie came out
Speaker 2: in thirty nine. And the color in the movie is,
Speaker 2: like I said, a key part of the plot. So
Speaker 2: in the screenplay you can actually see where the writer
Speaker 2: crossed out silver and wrote ruby. Oh wow, yeah, these
Speaker 2: shoes they're covered in glittering red sequins. They're fabulous.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like the last time when a technical
Speaker 4: innovation will actually like meaningfully be used in a movie
Speaker 4: instead of meaninglessly like Jaws three D when they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: we just got to throw things at the screen.
Speaker 2: D well, I mean I must. It must be sort
Speaker 2: of like the bullet time and the matrix, like all
Speaker 2: of a sudden it was everywhere, but then you'd never
Speaker 2: seen it before and it's so crazy. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: so we have like the yeah, this changeover to color,
Speaker 2: these iconic fabulous shoes. Who was the iconic woman who
Speaker 2: wore the iconic slippers? Miss Judy garlandg mother of Liza
Speaker 2: Minelli so Garland. She was born Francis Ethel Gumm in
Speaker 2: Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in nineteen twenty two. Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Timbertown,
Speaker 2: population seventy seven hundred. Do you know who else was
Speaker 2: from Grand Rapids, Minnesota? Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward Clever
Speaker 2: on Leave It to Beaver. Okay, so in Grand Rapids, Minnesota,
Speaker 2: there's the Judy Garland Museum. I don't believe there's a
Speaker 2: Hugh Beaumont museum.
Speaker 4: What about it in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In case people
Speaker 4: get confused, I keep saying, does that two museums?
Speaker 2: I kept typing out Grand Rapids Minnesota. So anyway, we
Speaker 2: know when I was little and I would watch reruns
Speaker 2: of Leave It to Beaver, you know, come home after
Speaker 2: school and they got all these reruns on. I thought
Speaker 2: his name was Hubo Mont.
Speaker 4: That's a better name.
Speaker 2: I was a very smart child. So Judy Garland Museum.
Speaker 2: It opened in nineteen seventy five. It describes itself veusly quote.
Speaker 2: The Judy Garland Museum is home to an eclectic Judy
Speaker 2: Garland and Wizard of Oz collect Judy's nineteen twenties restored
Speaker 2: birthplace home the Children's Discovery Museum on two acres of
Speaker 2: Minnesota beauty. The museum hosts thoughtfully curated exhibits and artifacts,
Speaker 2: including the original carriage featured in The Wizard of Oz,
Speaker 2: a Dorothy Gale test dress worn by Judy Garland, and
Speaker 2: many personal Judy Garland items collected over the last forty years.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to take home a souvenir at the museum store.
Speaker 4: Old Q tips and.
Speaker 2: Collected. It makes it sound like they snuck into her trash.
Speaker 2: And So Judy Garland died, though I hate to say
Speaker 2: June twenty second, nineteen sixty nine, a man named Michael Shaw.
Speaker 2: He bought those ruby slippers in nineteen seventy, a year
Speaker 2: after she died from costumer Kent Warner. So Michael Shaw
Speaker 2: buys them. Who is Michael Shaw. I'm glad you asked that.
Speaker 2: He's an acting coach. He's also the voice of Kit
Speaker 2: of night Rider.
Speaker 3: But on the on the show, not.
Speaker 2: On the show, just for the Universal Studios to her,
Speaker 2: so they couldn't get the same person, so they had
Speaker 2: they have Michael Shaw to it. He was a child
Speaker 2: actor at MGM and he played one of the kids
Speaker 2: in the Halloween scene and Meet Me in Saint Louis,
Speaker 2: another Judy Garland film. So when traveling to conferences, he
Speaker 2: would share stories with the audience about his time as
Speaker 2: a child during the Golden Age of Hollywood, sitting on
Speaker 2: Judy Garland's lap. Yes, David over there, Yes, I can
Speaker 2: take this question.
Speaker 4: Would he do it in the sound of Kit Kit.
Speaker 4: I'll take your question, Michael Judy Garland it.
Speaker 2: I would hope that he would. I'd be disappointed. But
Speaker 2: so he's talking about Golden Age Hollywood. He's like sitting
Speaker 2: on Judy Garland's lap. They watch movies together. She's super
Speaker 2: nice to all the kids. She's like, you know, takes
Speaker 2: care of them all. And so Michael Shaw. He's also
Speaker 2: an avid collector of film memorabilia. He owns a gown
Speaker 2: from the nineteen thirty eight film Marie Antoinette, Bet you
Speaker 2: didn't know that? And the Golden Calf and tablets from
Speaker 2: Cecil B. De mills nineteen fifty six film The Ten Commandments.
Speaker 4: Wow, I wonder if they're like they look gold at all,
Speaker 4: or if they're right.
Speaker 2: It's just all like like beige color. Now, yes, Hollywood,
Speaker 2: he collects all this stuff. I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: on display and a home. He refuses, Shaw, it's over
Speaker 2: his kitchen table. He's got the above, the fireplace is
Speaker 2: the is the Golden calf, and then the kitchen table
Speaker 2: has it you know with like it says like gather
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 4: The shell command in this house thou shalt not.
Speaker 2: So in this house. We watched The Ten Commandments. He
Speaker 2: didn't He didn't want to tell anyone how much he
Speaker 2: paid Kent Warner for the Ruby slippers. Quote. I never
Speaker 2: talk about prices. Okay, okay, it's good for you. However,
Speaker 2: there were reports that he he paid twenty five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars for the Ruby slippers. So keep that, keep that ballpark. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's good change. And we're talking about yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 2: Shaw thought of himself as a sort of protector of
Speaker 2: the slippers and an ambassador to Judy Garland's legacy.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: I have been given the respectibility of taking care of
Speaker 2: this pair of shoes, and I'd like to think that
Speaker 2: Judy is looking down smiling, knowing that her famous pumps
Speaker 2: are being used for such good causes.
Speaker 4: I like theop kids.
Speaker 2: Oh totally, so Shaw, He tells this story so many
Speaker 2: times over the years. This the story I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you right now. You ready. He said that he
Speaker 2: found out at a friend of his was battling aids
Speaker 2: at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. And this is
Speaker 2: this is like in the early days of the epidemic,
Speaker 2: when people thought that they could get it from just
Speaker 2: like shaking hands. The stigma's incredible. Yeah. So Shaw, he
Speaker 2: brings the ruby slippers to this friend's room. He rests
Speaker 2: the slippers on his friend's chest, and the man goes
Speaker 2: from absolutely just like terrible anguish and pain to just
Speaker 2: overcome with joy. And then the friend died a few
Speaker 2: hours later. That friend, according to Shaw, was Kent Warner,
Speaker 2: the costumer and former owner of the slippers. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: So this was like he would tell this to show
Speaker 2: how important ruby slippers are to people, like I said
Speaker 2: icon Nick. When he was working as a Hollywood costumer,
Speaker 2: Kent Warner found three pairs of prop shoes as well
Speaker 2: as an off screen test pair of ruby slippers, just
Speaker 2: you know, in a warehouse season there, oh crap. MGM
Speaker 2: was getting ready to auction off pieces in costumes like
Speaker 2: from old movies. So Shaw picks up the slippers as
Speaker 2: well as Dorothy's Gingham dress, Munchkin costume, and the Wicked
Speaker 2: Witch of the West hat and her broomstick. He just
Speaker 2: like gets all the good stuff.
Speaker 4: That's a haul.
Speaker 2: And so then he sold a pair of the test
Speaker 2: slippers to that they were the ones that weren't worn
Speaker 2: in the film. He sells into Debbie Reynolds for three
Speaker 2: hundred bucks bargain.
Speaker 4: She got a deal. Yeah she was a friendly right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, there were piles. So then he was
Speaker 2: going to sell another pair to Reynolds. She wanted to
Speaker 2: open her own Hollywood memorabilia museum, and like she had
Speaker 2: an assistant who was there who was helping her with this.
Speaker 2: So the assistant bought the ruby slippers but kept them
Speaker 2: for himself. Who was that assistant? Michael Shaw voice of
Speaker 2: Kit at Universal Studios. Tim Gearing of the Minnesota Monthly
Speaker 2: wrote this really good article about this whole escapade. In it,
Speaker 2: he writes, quote and by all accounts he Warner remained
Speaker 2: furious with Shaw right up to his death because he'd
Speaker 2: intended for the slippers to go to Debbie Reynolds. So
Speaker 2: Michael Shaw made up that whole story about visiting Warner
Speaker 2: in the hospital. Oh, it's terrible. That's terrible because apparently
Speaker 2: Warner hated him. There's no way he did this. Everyone's like,
Speaker 2: there's absolutely no way. You know, if he visited him
Speaker 2: on his deathbed, then I'm a flying monkey, says one insider.
Speaker 2: I don't know who that is. So anyway, we have
Speaker 2: this like this character Shaw, who's got, you know, gotten
Speaker 2: his hands on these things. And I'm not so sure
Speaker 2: it was in the best means. Let's take a break.
Speaker 2: When we come back, I'm going to tell you a
Speaker 2: little bit more about these slippers. All right, So Michael
Speaker 2: Shaw got the ruby slippers supposed to go to Wie Reynolds.
Speaker 2: Didn't happen. Warner, though, the costumer, he kept a pair
Speaker 2: of ruby slippers for himself, and then he gave a
Speaker 2: pair away to an auctioneer, and he told the auctioneer,
Speaker 2: these are the only pair of slippers that exist. So,
Speaker 2: you know, everyone's kind of telling stories around here. They
Speaker 2: had this multi day auction at MGM where they filmed
Speaker 2: The Wizard of Oz. There was another auction that was
Speaker 2: like marking the end of the glory days of old Hollywood,
Speaker 2: and it was described as a giant eighteen day wake
Speaker 2: for Hollywood in the nineteen eighty nine book The Ruby
Speaker 2: Slippers of Oz. So the ruby slippers that went to
Speaker 2: auction were apparently the star of the show and they
Speaker 2: sold for fifteen thousand dollars. Good appreciation on that.
Speaker 4: Any way, these are the backups or these are the actual.
Speaker 2: These are the backups that he told the auctioneer were
Speaker 2: the only parent existence. But there are a couple other
Speaker 2: pairs floating around. So the auction ends, a Memphis resident
Speaker 2: comes forward to reporters and tells them, guess what I
Speaker 2: won the authentic ruby slippers in a contest in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty And then they start putting it all together. There
Speaker 2: weren't just one pair of ruby slippers. There's a bunch
Speaker 2: of them. So over time, all these people that are
Speaker 2: trying to tabulate it up. It turns out that there
Speaker 2: are four on screen pairs and one off screen test pair.
Speaker 2: Rhys Thomas, author of The Ruby Slippers of Oz, quote,
Speaker 2: these shoes are the holy grail of all Hollywood memorabilia.
Speaker 2: There isn't anything else that does more to evoke the
Speaker 2: power of belief.
Speaker 4: I wonder if that's still true.
Speaker 2: I doubt probably not. So Shaw told this guy quote,
Speaker 2: the shoes themselves are worthless. It's what they are and
Speaker 2: what they represent. Okay, so they aren't worthless.
Speaker 4: It's the friends say along the way.
Speaker 2: Exactly. So there's this appraiser, Laura Woolley of Antiques Road Show.
Speaker 2: She said, quote, there's a much deeper emotional connection with memorabilia.
Speaker 2: Most people encounter these objects or develop a fondness for
Speaker 2: them in childhood. It sounds like a like a psychological Yeah,
Speaker 2: it sounds like, you know, they have in childhood, and
Speaker 2: when you grow up and suddenly you're an adult with
Speaker 2: money to spend, you can recapture something from you if
Speaker 2: most of these things kind of turn people back into children, Okay, lady.
Speaker 4: I only sounds Funko pops, Yes.
Speaker 2: Funko pops.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: She probably sounds like a totally normal person in my
Speaker 2: major sound marginally AI Anyway, Thomas, he spent decades researching
Speaker 2: the history of all these these various pairs of ruby
Speaker 2: slippers flying around. In nineteen seventy nine, the purchaser of
Speaker 2: the auction slippers, the one that for fifteen thousand, donated
Speaker 2: those to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and
Speaker 2: then a curator at the Smithsonian said that they're kept
Speaker 2: in a locked case with an alarm, and they're under
Speaker 2: twenty four hour guard surveillance. So these these things are
Speaker 2: to be protected, Dave. They're They're a major part of
Speaker 2: pretty much, you know. I mean, that's who we are,
Speaker 2: it's what we believe.
Speaker 4: So when people say we're bigger than this, we are
Speaker 4: talking about those.
Speaker 2: Slippers precisely, precisely so this they said that any tampering
Speaker 2: would immediately send a message to the guard's office. So
Speaker 2: it's just wired. Can't get in there. That Memphis woman
Speaker 2: who won the pair in the forties or whatever, she
Speaker 2: sold them in nineteen eighty eight to a collector at
Speaker 2: an auction for one hundred and sixty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That's a come up, Yeah, it is. I mean, she's
Speaker 2: a good job lady.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and she won them, right, she previously she won them.
Speaker 2: So now she's got one hundred and sixty five grand.
Speaker 2: She you know, sells them to this collector. The collector
Speaker 2: was a huge Garland fan, and that he'd seen her
Speaker 2: in concert thirty five times and even attended her funeral.
Speaker 2: And so that person turned around and loaned the ruby
Speaker 2: slippers to Disney World for display before selling them at
Speaker 2: auction in two thousand and four six hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: six thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Wow, and if you're Disney, you're getting some serious rent
Speaker 4: on the one thing.
Speaker 2: Oh totally, totally so six ' six y six k right.
Speaker 2: A group of collectors and investors, one of the Slipper Consortium,
Speaker 2: David L. Koubi, said to Newsweek, quote, we were collectors,
Speaker 2: and for us, that's the ultimate prize. So now, where
Speaker 2: do they live? In a bank vault? They live in
Speaker 2: a bank.
Speaker 4: Vau Oh perfect, that's exactly where.
Speaker 2: There's no place like home. So nineteen eighty one, three
Speaker 2: years before he died at UCLA Medical Center, most likely
Speaker 2: not clutching the Ruby slippers, Kurt Warner sold his pair
Speaker 2: of Ruby slippers at auction for twelve thousand dollars in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one. Then in twenty twelve, the person who
Speaker 2: bought them sold those for two million, two million dollars
Speaker 2: million a shoe to a group of people who bought
Speaker 2: them for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Speaker 4: I mean that's like a grand a sequin pretty much.
Speaker 2: But you know who is in this group that paid
Speaker 2: two mil Leo DiCaprio and Steven Spielberg of.
Speaker 4: Course, Oh, Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 2: Of course you knew Leo and Stevie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I need that.
Speaker 2: So twenty eleven, Debbie Reynolds sold her test pair that
Speaker 2: she did get for six hundred twenty seven thousand at
Speaker 2: an auction. Those shoes were called the Arabian Test Pair,
Speaker 2: and they got their name because they had an experimental
Speaker 2: design with curled toes.
Speaker 4: Whoa ooh heillo. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this is what Debbie Reynolds had to say. Quote,
Speaker 2: I know Judy wore them, and I know she liked
Speaker 2: them best of all, she said, I want the pair
Speaker 2: with a pointy toe. Apparently Judy didn't get what Judy wanted.
Speaker 2: So here's the thing though, Like Dorothy's dress, is that
Speaker 2: of a simple farm girl gingham for day. And they
Speaker 2: thought that the Arabian style shoes were just too ornate,
Speaker 2: as if like sequined pumps aren't. But okay, you know,
Speaker 2: I get it. So now that we have a better
Speaker 2: understanding of the high stakes world of ruby slippers, let's
Speaker 2: head back to Grand Rapids, Minnesota and the Judy Garland Museum. Dave,
Speaker 2: close your eyes.
Speaker 4: What okay? And now what you do here? I'm picturing it.
Speaker 2: I want you to picture it.
Speaker 4: Eyes are closed.
Speaker 2: It's August twenty eighth, two thousand and five, and you're
Speaker 2: a haunted porcelain doll sitting on display at the Judy
Speaker 2: Garland Museum in Grand Rapits, Minnesota.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, you.
Speaker 2: Were one of one of Judy's childhood favorite toys, maybe
Speaker 2: because you were haunted even way back then. You sit
Speaker 2: on your shelf watching judging. It's been a long day
Speaker 2: at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. But
Speaker 2: night has fallen and the rest of the haunted items
Speaker 2: are going about their business, whimpering or plotting to shove
Speaker 2: a vase to the floor. It's just past two am.
Speaker 3: Red round.
Speaker 2: Suddenly you hear a commotion at the back of the museum.
Speaker 2: Then glass breaks. Your creepy glass eyes shift in your
Speaker 2: haunted porcelain skull to peer at the hallway. A figure
Speaker 2: approaches the teddy bear next to you, senses trouble, and
Speaker 2: its eyes begin to glow. You use your esp to
Speaker 2: tell the bear to knock it off. Well, now is
Speaker 2: not the time to use your powers to slash the
Speaker 2: human with a broken bottle. You guys are saving all
Speaker 2: that for the uprisings. For now. You and the other
Speaker 2: haunted Sundrys watch as a person tiptoes into the room.
Speaker 2: The burglar approaches the plexiglass case directly across the room
Speaker 2: from you. This should be interesting, you think. The robber
Speaker 2: gently whistles a tune and lifts a crowbar high above
Speaker 2: their head. The haunted typewriter begins to slack out some
Speaker 2: ribbon for a garat no. You signal ever so slightly.
Speaker 2: That display has been getting all the attention late lately.
Speaker 2: Let the criminal do their work with a great force.
Speaker 2: The burglar brings the crowbar down onto the plexiglass case,
Speaker 2: splintering it. The haunted random cassette tape stacked in a
Speaker 2: bookcase hiss, yes, Yes, the large carriage in the next
Speaker 2: room creaks with delight at the chaos. The burglar hears
Speaker 2: the noise and freezes dead silence. The person goes back
Speaker 2: to the job at hand. They gently lift the pair
Speaker 2: of iconic ruby slippers from the destroyed case and tiptoe
Speaker 2: back out. There's much silent chatter among all the haunted
Speaker 2: items at the museum about who that was and where
Speaker 2: the slippers would go. Unfortunately, the slippers weren't haunted. There's
Speaker 2: no way to get a message to them and track them.
Speaker 2: This is when it pays to be haunted, Dave. Come morning,
Speaker 2: when the staff opened the museum to the Garland loving public,
Speaker 2: all hell broke loose. The stolen ruby slippers weren't part
Speaker 2: of the museum's permanent collection. They were on loan to
Speaker 2: the museum, on display for the annual Judy Garland Festival.
Speaker 2: Who owned these stolen ruby slippers Michael shaw Kit He
Speaker 2: would often lend the slippers for thousands of dollars to
Speaker 2: museums to display, and then he would turn around and
Speaker 2: he said, donate the money to children and charities which
Speaker 2: he may have. You know, let's give him the benefit
Speaker 2: of the doubt. This is what he said. Quote, I
Speaker 2: literally felt like I was hit in the stomach when
Speaker 2: I got the call. My knees buckled and I went
Speaker 2: right to the floor. I had taken care of those
Speaker 2: shoes for thirty five years. John Miner, who co founded
Speaker 2: the museum and was also the treasurer. He said quote,
Speaker 2: I cried. I couldn't believe this happened to us, because
Speaker 2: it was the stupidest thing.
Speaker 4: This is like the most dramatic thing that could happen
Speaker 4: to the most dramatic people in the world.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's so wonderful. I love this so much.
Speaker 2: Christopher Myers, who was a US attorney in North Dakota.
Speaker 2: He was somehow involved in the case. I don't know
Speaker 2: why he was working in Minnesota whatever. So quote there's
Speaker 2: a certain romance in these types of schemes and sometimes sophistication,
Speaker 2: but at the end of the day, it's theft. These
Speaker 2: types of offenses not only deprived the owner of their property,
Speaker 2: but all of us. This type of cultural property is
Speaker 2: important to us as a society. It reflects culture, It
Speaker 2: holds our memories, it reflects our values. He's totally running
Speaker 2: for office, right like he's running, baby, I mean.
Speaker 4: People would not even know that the ruby slippers were gone.
Speaker 4: First of all, there's like a million pairs of them.
Speaker 4: And second of all, right, like everyone has that copy
Speaker 4: of Life magazine with a picture of them, and that's
Speaker 4: all they need in their lips they need.
Speaker 2: They're done. So there are the slippers, the ones that
Speaker 2: bring so much joy uniting our culture. They are sitting
Speaker 2: in the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, they're not. Shaw had declined
Speaker 2: the museum's offer to store the Ruby slippers in a
Speaker 2: vault because he said he didn't like the idea that
Speaker 2: the guards would be touching these shoes on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: He said all he cared about was having security, even
Speaker 2: just like as a baseline. So there was no security
Speaker 2: camera footage of the break in and no fingerprints, just
Speaker 2: a lone speck of red sequin left behind. The museum
Speaker 2: did have both an alarm system and video surveillance equipment,
Speaker 2: but neither one we're working at the time of the burglary.
Speaker 4: Inside job.
Speaker 2: That's exactly job. Oh everyone's saying it's an inside job. Well,
Speaker 2: here's what the museum said. They said that they told
Speaker 2: the alarm company to turn off the alarm during the
Speaker 2: day because museum visitors kept using the back door. So
Speaker 2: instead of saying do not open, like just give him
Speaker 2: free egress out the back, turn off the alarm. So
Speaker 2: and because the thing is is like when the alarm
Speaker 2: would go off, it would alert the police, and then
Speaker 2: if you have enough false alarms, they start charging you
Speaker 2: in the medium couldn't afford it. So the alarm company
Speaker 2: was like, that's totally not what happened. We were told
Speaker 2: to disable the alarm completely, not just during the day.
Speaker 2: And then with CCTV, everyone knew. They turned the CCTV
Speaker 2: off at night save energy. What I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: like peak hours. Who knows.
Speaker 4: I feel like when you know, when Indiana Jones said
Speaker 4: just belongs in a museum, this is not what he
Speaker 4: had in mind.
Speaker 3: No, this is.
Speaker 2: Totally not animly. So the museum director, John kel She said,
Speaker 2: quote everyone knew we didn't have any security staff. Michael
Speaker 2: Shaw knew that. It's just sad that it happened here.
Speaker 2: It is like, yeah, everyone knew. It's just so sad.
Speaker 2: There was like people thought that the ruby slippers were
Speaker 2: actually a fake pair that was set up to be
Speaker 2: quote stolen, and that Shaw paid someone in the museum
Speaker 2: to kind of like facilitate this whole thing, you know,
Speaker 2: insurance money and all Shaw totally denies this. There's this
Speaker 2: private investigator, Kip Alexander Kyp.
Speaker 4: Now I'm picturing Kip from Futurama.
Speaker 2: Kip Alexander. This is what he said. Quote. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of theories surrounding this. You could say there's as
Speaker 2: many as Area fifty one had as far as conspiracies
Speaker 2: or theories. There's a lot of distrust and distaste left
Speaker 2: in their mouth, for sure. So he's putting it on
Speaker 2: par with Area fifty one.
Speaker 4: He's just speaking directly to like the History Channel special
Speaker 4: right now, completely.
Speaker 2: Completely And what did Shaw say about all this? Don't
Speaker 2: forget Shaw voice of kit quote, I'm so furious that
Speaker 2: the slippers are gone. It's very frustrating that they haven't
Speaker 2: caught that obsessed, fanatic, selfish bastard who stole them. Shaw
Speaker 2: And there was a theory swirling around this is I love.
Speaker 2: I don't know how this theory came to life, but
Speaker 2: I love it, and I feel like I would have
Speaker 2: started it as a rumor if I lived in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
Speaker 2: A lot of people thought that the theft was pulled
Speaker 2: off by teenagers who are just trying to pull a
Speaker 2: plant a prank, and then they panicked and threw the
Speaker 2: slippers away, but not just away away.
Speaker 4: So like ten years, well, wait ten years, that's what
Speaker 4: happened to those baseball uniforms in that other ridiculous cross
Speaker 4: That is true.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're yeah, I don't know, maybe they're onto something.
Speaker 2: But like, so, ten years after the theft, all these
Speaker 2: crowds gathered along the shoreline of the Tioga Mine Pitt Lake.
Speaker 2: Why what does that have to do with ruby slippers?
Speaker 4: Day? Yah? What does that have? Slippers?
Speaker 3: Lizabeth?
Speaker 2: The good folks were there to watch the Ataska County
Speaker 2: Sheriffs off his don scuba gear and dive in search
Speaker 2: of the ruby slippers the old quarry, so that there
Speaker 2: was a fear that the thieves threw them in the lake,
Speaker 2: and the lake had depths of up to two hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty five feet. So Morgan White is a filmmaker
Speaker 2: who's working on a documentary called The Slippers, is one
Speaker 2: of the people who's totally convinced that the teens did it.
Speaker 2: Quote all signs seem to point to the fact that
Speaker 2: these kids did it. They're probably sitting at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the mind pit and nobody will ever see them again.
Speaker 4: Now, were there specific kids who he said when he
Speaker 4: says these kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I couldn't tell. I think they had
Speaker 2: their eye on a couple kids. But I have news
Speaker 2: for you, Dave. The ruby slippers were not found in
Speaker 2: the Tioga mine pit lake.
Speaker 4: Oh thank god, the ruin totally.
Speaker 2: So this private donor in Arizona finds out, Okay, look
Speaker 2: that the slippers aren't in the lake. We're getting to
Speaker 2: be this is ridiculous. Someone needs to put a stop
Speaker 2: to it. I offer a million dollar for the recovery
Speaker 2: of the ruby slippers, A million dollars on the barrelhead.
Speaker 2: This announcement that it went in The Guardian, the New
Speaker 2: York Times, US Weekly, I mean US Weekly, the Magazine
Speaker 2: of Record, Washington Post. So this this donor like originally
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, I'll do phone interviews, you know, that's cool,
Speaker 2: but then at the last minute would cancel the Rhys
Speaker 2: Thomas believes that the one who wrote the book that
Speaker 2: believes that the museum faked that anonymous donor to get
Speaker 2: publicity because they were getting another Oz item in. So
Speaker 2: they're like, okay, we just got the horse drawn carriage
Speaker 2: that was apparently it used to be owned by Abraham
Speaker 2: Lincoln before it became a movie prop. So there the
Speaker 2: carriage in the Wizard of Oz apparently was originally owned
Speaker 2: by Abraham Lincoln, which is like totally glossed over in
Speaker 2: all this.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, for one thing, that's a real historical relic,
Speaker 4: right right. That another thing, yeah, like I'm not trusting
Speaker 4: this museum with anything ever again.
Speaker 2: Yeah exact, Yeah, you're gonna roll that in there. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: people go out of there. Okay, So the museum, like,
Speaker 2: you know, Thomas says, I think you faked it because
Speaker 2: you just want people to know about you have this
Speaker 2: cool carriage. The museum told Newsweek that they would provide
Speaker 2: a notarized letter from the attorney of the anonymous donor
Speaker 2: if he wished to push, you know, whether or not
Speaker 2: they existed. Everyone gave up? Who cares?
Speaker 3: Who knows?
Speaker 2: Who cares? There's a bakery in Minneapolis called the I
Speaker 2: don't even know how to say this. You know, here's
Speaker 2: the thing. I come across these words and I'm guaranteed
Speaker 2: to say the wrong version of it.
Speaker 4: Yes, and I don't care.
Speaker 3: I don't care.
Speaker 2: People correct me. I'm like, you know, at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, I don't care. It's w U L
Speaker 2: L E T wallets, you know, wallets. Anyway, they sold
Speaker 2: cakes that had the ruby slippers on it, and then
Speaker 2: in icing they wrote reward one million dollars, like just
Speaker 2: to keep the magic alive David's part of the culture.
Speaker 2: The Marriott offered a reward of one million Marriott Rewards.
Speaker 4: Points, which is like worth twenty bucks.
Speaker 2: It's worth twelve five hundred dollars to anyone who found
Speaker 2: the ruby slippers by August thirty first, a few weeks
Speaker 2: shy of the tenth anniversary of the theft.
Speaker 4: Now probably like just before they expire, like the expired.
Speaker 2: After they shut the whole rewards program down. An insurance
Speaker 2: company offered a two hundred thousand dollars reward. A board
Speaker 2: member of the museum contributed fifty k to a reward.
Speaker 2: They say that they got about a thousand calls regarding
Speaker 2: the whereabouts of the ruby slippers. A yard sale in
Speaker 2: Virginia stapled to a restaurant wall in Missouris. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: could be. There were claims that a radio station in
Speaker 2: New Hampshire was giving them away as a prize. Can't
Speaker 2: trust New Hampshire. In twenty eleven, law enforcement noticed a
Speaker 2: pair of ruby slippers in a home in San Francisco
Speaker 2: when they were responding to a home burglary.
Speaker 4: No no, I mean, see, it doesn't even seem.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. Like, so the cops go into
Speaker 2: this house and they're like, oh, cool, ruby slippers, and
Speaker 2: someone's like, I heard about the theft. You have to
Speaker 2: say something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, those individual officers wanted the rewards.
Speaker 2: They got a search warrant after being told like the
Speaker 2: home but the homeowners like, you know what, those were
Speaker 2: a gift from a past lover, and so they're all right,
Speaker 2: never mind. So but they these things have a serial
Speaker 2: number on them, and it didn't match the missing pair.
Speaker 2: How do they have serial numbers whatever? So how many
Speaker 2: pairs are out there? At one point someone did come
Speaker 2: forward claiming to know about these stolen slippers and how
Speaker 2: they could be returned, but it turned out it was
Speaker 2: just someone trying to, you know, extort the insurance company.
Speaker 2: By two thousand and nine, case was called no Leads,
Speaker 2: No clues. The cops were like, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: really a priority right now. Four months after the robbery,
Speaker 2: Essex Insurance Company took Shaw, the museum, and the museum
Speaker 2: director to court, claiming the insurance policy was voided by
Speaker 2: the museum because they didn't disclose changes to their security measures.
Speaker 2: Shaw said of this quote the insurance company, they investigated
Speaker 2: me upside down, inside out. They realized I had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with it, and basically the museum knew it too.
Speaker 2: They were reaching its straws to try and throw the
Speaker 2: guilt away from themselves. So all these years later, the
Speaker 2: parties settled in two thousand and seven. Shaw got eight
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars out of it. He said, quote, I'm
Speaker 2: still furious for so many people. They represented home, love
Speaker 2: and childhood and security. That's what people saw when they
Speaker 2: looked at the slippers. And now they're gone, gone, but
Speaker 2: not forgotten. So the FBI Art Crime Unit and agents
Speaker 2: from Atlanta, Chicago, and Miami, they went undercover because they
Speaker 2: had to lead a strong one. This sting operation was set.
Speaker 2: One of them took them all the way to Minneapolis.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break. When we come back, I'm going
Speaker 2: to tell you how this went down.
Speaker 4: Gotta know, all right, Dave.
Speaker 2: When we left off, the FBI was about to solve
Speaker 2: the case of the missing Ruby slippers. I can't wait
Speaker 2: the sting operation in Minneapolis, remember that. Sure, it was
Speaker 2: a success. On September fourth, two thousand and nine, the
Speaker 2: FBI announced the stolen Ruby slippers were recovered and taken
Speaker 2: to the Smithsonian for authentication. No suspects were named at
Speaker 2: the time, and officials asked that anyone with any information
Speaker 2: please contact the FBI. So I'm guessing they kind of
Speaker 2: changed hands the recovered Ruby slippers. They were put on
Speaker 2: display in a clear case for reporters to photograph during
Speaker 2: a press conference. So they like paraded them out.
Speaker 4: It's like when they put all the cash and the
Speaker 4: drugs on the table.
Speaker 2: They fanned out all nicely like this. No, you know what,
Speaker 2: it's too symmetrical.
Speaker 4: Can we get some more cleague lights in here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have like ring lights on the pilot cash.
Speaker 2: So they wheel them out. They were guarded by FBI
Speaker 2: officials who would tell people, you know, don't get too
Speaker 2: close to the glass. This is evidence, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: give it some distance, So click them heels and fast forward.
Speaker 2: Fourteen years. On Tuesday May fifteenth, twenty twenty three, Terry Martin,
Speaker 2: a seventy six year old Minnesotan who lived twelve miles
Speaker 2: south of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota,
Speaker 2: was indicted by a grand jury for one count of
Speaker 2: theft of a major artwork. Wow, he stole the Ruby
Speaker 2: Slippers nearly eighteen years prior, And well, no it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It was a seventy six year old man, and I
Speaker 2: guess he was like in his late fifties at the point.
Speaker 2: So those little tappers they're now worth an estimated three
Speaker 2: point five million dollars.
Speaker 4: Do you think being lost made them more valuable?
Speaker 2: Oh? It has to have. And they're called quote, an
Speaker 2: object of cultural heritage from the care, custody or control
Speaker 2: of a museum. So it's like this is museum quality.
Speaker 2: It's like I've ever seen antiques road show when someone
Speaker 2: wheels something out and they're like, oh, no, this actually
Speaker 2: has to be in a museum. We can't put a
Speaker 2: dollar amount on it, Like yeah, yeah, yeah. So the
Speaker 2: indictment made people wonder if did this seventy six year
Speaker 2: old Minnesota did he act alone? Was he hired by
Speaker 2: organized crime.
Speaker 4: Why does he hate America?
Speaker 2: Why does he hate the culture in America? This is
Speaker 2: what the guy had to say to the Minnesota Star
Speaker 2: Tribune quote, I gotta go on trial. I don't want
Speaker 2: to talk to you. God bless my kind of guy.
Speaker 2: So this is a great name. Seaword Darby. Say word,
Speaker 2: Say word again again? S E S E Y W
Speaker 2: A R D say word sword, Say word Darby. This
Speaker 2: person is the co host of the podcast No Place
Speaker 2: Like Home. So like, I don't want a turf step
Speaker 2: on another. Respect respect you, respect mad respect quote. There
Speaker 2: was a strong suspicion that there was a quote local
Speaker 2: connection to the crime, someone with knowledge of the museum,
Speaker 2: in fact, that the slippers were on loan there in
Speaker 2: the summer of two thousand and five, and how easy
Speaker 2: they were to steal. What's interesting is that Martin is
Speaker 2: just one piece of the puzzle. Over the thirteen years
Speaker 2: the slippers were missing, it is possible, likely even that
Speaker 2: they exchanged hands. So that's a deep dive if you're
Speaker 2: interested in No Place Like Home. Rhys Thomas, the author, quote,
Speaker 2: I have a feeling this is just the tip of
Speaker 2: the iceberg. I don't think a single individual would have
Speaker 2: been have opportunistically grabbed the shoes and then sat on
Speaker 2: them for thirteen years and then gotten himself involved in
Speaker 2: an extortion case.
Speaker 3: What I just deep.
Speaker 2: It goes deep, Dave, It goes so much deeper than
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: Like, there's no so he really he walks out the
Speaker 4: back door one day at the museum. He's like, oh,
Speaker 4: there's no alarm here, and realizes he could probably just
Speaker 4: walk out with some slippers.
Speaker 2: He'd totally they totally fit him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like he goes back or he gets home and
Speaker 4: he's like, honey, slipper fence, slipper fence. He's like looking
Speaker 4: at his Yellow Pages and he realizes there's no such
Speaker 4: thing as a slipper fence.
Speaker 2: Oh well, when he got him, and he got him
Speaker 2: for his wife, his wife is like these don't fit.
Speaker 2: Well okay, well just I'll take him back and he
Speaker 2: just shoves him in the closet. So the pair of
Speaker 2: ruby slippers that were stolen are technically not a true pair.
Speaker 2: The left and right shoes are different sizes, and they
Speaker 2: actually are mates to the left and right ruby slippers
Speaker 2: on display at the Smithsonian. It's weird. Do you know,
Speaker 2: do you know that those are one of the most
Speaker 2: asked about artifacts there. I didn't know that, like where
Speaker 2: are the ruby slippers? Like hey, hey, where are the
Speaker 2: ruby slippers? And over there, sir, like that's the most
Speaker 2: asked question at the Smithsonian. So they made several pairs
Speaker 2: of these for filming. As we know, we many now
Speaker 2: believe that the original total was seven, and that includes
Speaker 2: one pair that was originally chewed up by Toto. Some
Speaker 2: I thing I can vouch is an action of a
Speaker 2: car and terrier. Like I have to say that my
Speaker 2: dog passed away at the end of December twenty two
Speaker 2: at the age of fifteen, and I'd had him since
Speaker 2: he was three months old. His name was Elliott, and
Speaker 2: we counted him as one of the internsier. I loved
Speaker 2: bless up Elliott. I liked I liked to blame things
Speaker 2: on him in this show, and like sometimes I get
Speaker 2: wistful thinking about what he chewed up when he was
Speaker 2: a young pup, baseboards, legs of chairs. He once chewed
Speaker 2: a hole in a purse that I had to get
Speaker 2: to a cookie in there instead of like going in
Speaker 2: through the top. So anyway, so when I hear about
Speaker 2: Toto chewing up a pair of iconic ruby slippers. I
Speaker 2: kind of like that, Like puppies remind us that things
Speaker 2: are just things, right, they're impermanent, and then we get
Speaker 2: older and they remind us that they and we are
Speaker 2: impermanent too. So it's all stuff. It's just stuff, And
Speaker 2: that's why I love these kind of crimes. It's just stuff.
Speaker 2: So they may be like part of the culture and
Speaker 2: we're three million dollars, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: it's just stuff. So ruby slippers. Only three pairs are
Speaker 2: said to have survived. Of the seven. The stolen hair
Speaker 2: was what's known as the quote traveling pair, and they
Speaker 2: were made from a dozen different pieces of material that
Speaker 2: included glass, plastic, gelatine, silk, threading, wood, pulp. Okay, I
Speaker 2: don't know. So the majority, like the ruby coloring, really
Speaker 2: came from the sequins, but they were like bows on
Speaker 2: them that were red glass beads, and the show's traveling
Speaker 2: pair were actually burgundy, not ruby red, because that would
Speaker 2: have come out as bright orange in technicolor, and so
Speaker 2: the pair was the one. The stolen ones are the
Speaker 2: ones used for close up shots when Dorothy clicked her
Speaker 2: heels together. Shaw said they were absolutely beautiful, and he
Speaker 2: would only handle them while wearing white gloves like he
Speaker 2: worked at Sephora. It wasn't until after the stolen pairs
Speaker 2: were recovered that it was learned that they were mismatched
Speaker 2: twins of the pair at the Smithsonium. So the Ruby
Speaker 2: slippers are still in custody with the authorities, just like
Speaker 2: Funko Batman. They can't be returned to their owner in
Speaker 2: this case Shaw, because Shah got that insurance payout. So yeah, insurance,
Speaker 2: just like Bunco Batman. So the insurance company is the
Speaker 2: legal owner. Shaw is at peace with this quote. There's
Speaker 2: more to my life than a pair of pumps. I
Speaker 2: have no desire to have them again. After years of
Speaker 2: bringing joy and happiness to so many thousands and thousands
Speaker 2: of people by being able to see them. Now to me,
Speaker 2: they're a nightmare. I'm not going to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm sick of it. They're gone. Frankly, my dear, I
Speaker 2: don't give a dance. Wait now, he yeah, he's amazing.
Speaker 2: Janey Heights the executive director of the Judy Garland Museum.
Speaker 2: There are so many levels, there's like different director levels,
Speaker 2: and whatever she wants the recovered ruby slippers to stay
Speaker 2: in federal custody as case evidence, and then hopes that
Speaker 2: they can be like eventually returned to the museum. So
Speaker 2: like slippery way to get around to having them back
Speaker 2: at the museum. Quote, it's such an iconic item that
Speaker 2: means so much to so many people. And she said
Speaker 2: that it, you know, represents home and a sense of place. Quote,
Speaker 2: it would be a shame for them to stay in
Speaker 2: a locked case for the rest of time, So let's
Speaker 2: send them to the zero security level. Judy Garland Museum
Speaker 2: and Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She said she can find no
Speaker 2: connection between Martin and the museum and that everyone at
Speaker 2: the museum is quote a little bit speechless that someone
Speaker 2: was charged. Almost two decades later, Tim Gerring I mentioned
Speaker 2: him Minnesota Monthly. I'm going to let him send us
Speaker 2: off here with some really incredible observations. This is a
Speaker 2: long quote, but it's worth it. Quote Throughout her famously
Speaker 2: up and down career, which ended Elvis style in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine an accidental overdose of sleeping pills rigor Mortis
Speaker 2: in the London bathroom. Garland was particularly admired by gay men.
Speaker 2: She was less guarded than most stars, and they were
Speaker 2: drawn to this brassy candor. After all, being unguarded wasn't
Speaker 2: an option for gay men in Garland's day. They could
Speaker 2: only long, like Dorothy to live in technicolor. They secretly
Speaker 2: referred to themselves as friends of Dorothy and took solace
Speaker 2: in Garland's apparent sympathy, not least perhaps because two of
Speaker 2: her five husbands turned out to be gay. Quote if
Speaker 2: you're afraid to love, if you're afraid to feel emotion,
Speaker 2: you can't know Judy Garland, one fan tells me, aids
Speaker 2: took an outsized bite of Garland's fan base, and as
Speaker 2: gay culture, once closely associated with the cult of Garland,
Speaker 2: is increasingly assimilated into the mainstream, fewer young gay men
Speaker 2: are picking up the torch. In the world of celebrity memorabilia,
Speaker 2: the failure to recover the Ruby Slippers has conjured no
Speaker 2: little trepidation, A fear that people aren't taking the icon's
Speaker 2: disappearance seriously, fear that the magic is finally wearing off.
Speaker 2: If the Slippers lose their hold on the American imagination,
Speaker 2: what other cultural mementos might we deem disposable. It's an
Speaker 2: American national treasure that's been stolen, and no one gives
Speaker 2: a damn, cries Brian Cummings, a New York appraiser of
Speaker 2: celebrity memorabilia. It blows my mind to know that they're
Speaker 2: still out there. Yet in the new status of stolen property,
Speaker 2: the slippers feel more real than they have in years.
Speaker 2: They are mere objects again to be lost or found,
Speaker 2: and perhaps that is for the best. The old movie
Speaker 2: studios we know now were never in the business of
Speaker 2: making magic so much as illusions. Stars like Garland were
Speaker 2: fed pills and cigarettes by their studio bosses and stage
Speaker 2: moms to control their weight. They were products as manufactured
Speaker 2: as the props from the stage names to their public
Speaker 2: lives created for them by studio publicity departments. To treasure
Speaker 2: Hollywood memorabilia is to value fantasy over this harsh reality,
Speaker 2: to ignore the man behind the curtain.
Speaker 4: Wow, brav right, I mean home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an amazing article, Dave, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 4: Oh man? Can I first I want to thank the Academy.
Speaker 4: I've been waiting for this moment forever, you know. I
Speaker 4: think it's interesting and that quote really brought it home.
Speaker 4: Like these slippers are far more meaningful to the gay
Speaker 4: community than they could possibly be to quote America rit
Speaker 4: law Arge. In fact, I feel like those two things
Speaker 4: are almost intention because like what Judy Garland means to
Speaker 4: that culture is different than what Judy Garland means, which
Speaker 4: is you know equally yeah yeah yeah, And it really
Speaker 4: like speaks to a struggle in a way that Judy Garland,
Speaker 4: this like amazing pop star, movie star and musical star,
Speaker 4: isn't really representative of a struggle for like most of America.
Speaker 4: She's just like the pinnacle of Hollywood magic. And so
Speaker 4: like in that context, I get it. And it's almost
Speaker 4: like in that context, things like like this should be
Speaker 4: owned by that community and like instead of being you know,
Speaker 4: locked away in a museum somewhere, Like I'm glad they're home,
Speaker 4: and I get why it's a big deal that they
Speaker 4: were missing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I love the idea that tying it in
Speaker 2: with in The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy gets to
Speaker 2: go to Oz and be brave and create her own
Speaker 2: family and community, and like the thing is to live
Speaker 2: in technicolor, to like have all these options and brilliance
Speaker 2: around her, and so reading that really kind of drove
Speaker 2: it home the importance of it, so you know, I
Speaker 2: make fun of it. It's not important to me, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't make it not important.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I hate I'm just gonna kind of.
Speaker 2: Like, who do I But you know, don't tell anyone I.
Speaker 4: Can get down with the shoes like I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I totally get it. I totally get it.
Speaker 2: So that's it. That's all I have for you today.
Speaker 2: You do you like it?
Speaker 4: It was awesome, Elizabeth, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. You can find us online at
Speaker 2: ridiculous Crime dot com. We have t shirts if you're
Speaker 2: into that sort of thing. Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter
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Speaker 2: look at those. Leave a talkback on the iHeart app.
Speaker 4: Do it.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Dave Cousten
Speaker 2: and sometimes Aaron Burnett, produced and edited by the Great
Speaker 2: Oz Dave Cousten. Research is by Marissa Brown, The Goodwitch
Speaker 2: and the Wickedest Witch of the Southeast, Andrea's song Sharpened Tear.
Speaker 2: The theme song is by Lollipop Guild Ambassadors Thomas Lee
Speaker 2: and Travis Dutton. Executive producers are cowardly Lyon Ben Bollen
Speaker 2: and Tin Man, Noel.
Speaker 5: Brown, Ridicous Crime, Say It one More Timequeous Crime.
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