The road to Dorothy’s stolen Ruby Slippers

May 25, 2023

Part One of a Series

In May, Terry Jon Martin, age 76, Grand Rapids, was federally indicted, in U.S. District Court, on one count of theft of major artwork. The artwork is a spectacularly hand-crafted $15.00 pair of ruby red sequined and beaded pumps. These historic movie props were designed to capture the hearts of children everywhere in the first Technicolor movie of its kind – The Wizard of Oz (1939). The mismatched “traveling shoes” were owned by collector Michael Shaw and were on their fourth round of display at the Judy Garland Children’s Museum in August 2005, when the unforeseen happened. The smash-and-grab burglary of the treasured shoes, insured for one million dollars, hastily left the museum in the [alleged] hands of Terry Martin, then 58 years old.

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