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00:00:07What did the shoes look like when you had them?
00:00:10They were five and a half in S pumps, covered with burgundy pot de soix fabric.
00:00:16The bows were made by the leather department at MGM.
00:00:21When the shoes were stolen, they found one of the sequins on the floor.
00:00:27People have told me that your shoes are not only the most famous, they're the most infamous pair of ruby
00:00:34slippers.
00:00:35That's quite a distinction.
00:00:37What would the shoes be worth today?
00:00:42A lot.
00:00:43A lot.
00:00:45Ruby slippers are definitely the most famous shoes in the world.
00:00:48Let's open the bid app.
00:00:48One million five fifty.
00:00:50Anybody two point four, two four?
00:00:51I mean, you can say you have a Rembrandt and people say that's nice.
00:00:54But you can say you have the ruby slippers and everybody you meet is going to want to see the
00:00:57damn shoes.
00:00:58Ten million dollars.
00:01:00You want to just count by millions?
00:01:01It's fine with me.
00:01:02I mean, I would classify them as the holy grail.
00:01:04That is the Rolls Royce.
00:01:06Eighteen million dollars.
00:01:07Historic piece.
00:01:08Part of our American culture.
00:01:10They were stolen.
00:01:11Stolen.
00:01:11Stolen.
00:01:12Stolen.
00:01:12Twenty-two million.
00:01:13Anybody else?
00:01:14I said, why?
00:01:15Why did they take them?
00:01:17I'd love to spit them in the eye.
00:01:19Fair warning now.
00:01:20I'm at twenty-five million dollars.
00:01:21The real gem behind all of this is the story of where they've been.
00:01:36Okay.
00:01:55Okay, so we're on the southern part of Grand Rapids here
00:01:59where Walmart put up their big box store here.
00:02:01So we're going to turn down River Road here
00:02:03at the new Casey's General Store.
00:02:05The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland, and the Red Ruby Slippers
00:02:09put Grand Rapids on the map a long time ago.
00:02:16Everybody says, Judy Garland's from Grand Rapids?
00:02:19Oh, yeah.
00:02:20It's Grand Rapids, Minnesota, not Grand Rapids, Michigan.
00:02:24We have the Judy Garland Historic House,
00:02:26which is lovingly restored.
00:02:32Growing up, Grand Rapids was a very quiet town.
00:02:34Grand Rapids now is more hustle and bustle.
00:02:38The traffic drives me up the wall.
00:02:43We're in the paper industry, we're in the tourist industry,
00:02:47and we're in the taconite industry,
00:02:48and we've got enough pure ore to cover the United States for 100 years.
00:02:54Grand Rapids is a small community, 10,000 people.
00:02:57We celebrate victories for people, however it might be,
00:03:01and she's just a very historical figure, and people latch onto that.
00:03:05The Wizard of Oz and Judy Garland and the whole thing
00:03:08has brought very famous people to our community.
00:03:10Pierce Pincott from Perfect Strangers, remember that?
00:03:14Her family was instrumental in a lot of things in the community.
00:03:17It's amazing to me the city of Grand Rapids
00:03:19didn't put their Red Ruby Slippers on our water towers.
00:03:23The shoes were stolen, and we haven't solved it yet.
00:03:27Someone with enough brains to not get caught stole the slippers.
00:03:31I don't think that we're hated because of it,
00:03:34but we've got some egg on our face as a department.
00:03:37We like solving crimes and closing cases,
00:03:39but this one is exciting because it's a big deal.
00:03:45And the story of the shoes, it's not whether they're found or not,
00:03:49it's finding out who did it and why and where they're at
00:03:51and what happened to them.
00:03:55In 2018, I set out on a journey
00:03:57when I heard about the annual Judy Garland Festival in Grand Rapids.
00:04:05That's when I met Sergeant Stein to talk to him about the theft.
00:04:12It's our white whale.
00:04:14I was raised here, I grew up here, no place like home.
00:04:17Welcome to the land of Oz.
00:04:23The Judy Garland Festival began 40 years ago in 1979.
00:04:28One of the great pleasures of coming to this festival
00:04:31is to be with people who sit there
00:04:33and want to be reminded of the joy of Judy Garland.
00:04:37It was during the 2005 festival
00:04:39when the Ruby Slippers,
00:04:40estimated to be worth around a million dollars, were swiped.
00:04:44I'm a true crime TV producer from Minnesota
00:04:47and my team and I thought the Stolen Slippers
00:04:49would make a good show.
00:04:50We just didn't know then how good.
00:04:54Lots of Judy fans
00:04:56and lots of people come out of the woodwork.
00:04:58The hat is all the buttons
00:05:01from the Grand Rapids Judy Garland Festival.
00:05:05If ever a little wizard
00:05:06was the Wizard of Oz's one
00:05:08because of the kind of...
00:05:12Everyone around town wanted to know
00:05:14who stole the shoes.
00:05:15It is quite a mystery.
00:05:17We still don't know.
00:05:18As for my festival adventure,
00:05:20it was very clear
00:05:21that I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.
00:05:26Judy Garland's family
00:05:28moved to Grand Rapids in 1914
00:05:30to run a movie theater.
00:05:35They had three girls
00:05:37and the third child
00:05:38was Frances Ethel Gumm
00:05:40who became Judy Garland.
00:05:42The Gumm family
00:05:43actually lived here for 12 years
00:05:45so from 1914 to 1926.
00:05:50They were all involved in performing.
00:05:53Mom and dad would play the piano.
00:05:55The girls would rehearse
00:05:56on the little landing on the stairs.
00:05:58Judy started performing
00:06:00at two and a half.
00:06:02She sang jingle bells
00:06:03at her dad's theater one Christmas
00:06:05and the audience was just awestruck.
00:06:07She kept singing it over and over
00:06:09and they said,
00:06:10baby, get off!
00:06:11They yelled from the wings
00:06:11and she said,
00:06:12but I like it.
00:06:13Her dad had to throw her
00:06:14over his shoulder
00:06:15and take her off.
00:06:17They wanted to go to California.
00:06:19They wanted to manifest
00:06:21these ambitions they had
00:06:22for the girls.
00:06:23She turned out to be
00:06:25one of the biggest movie stars
00:06:26of all time.
00:06:28Hollywood star
00:06:29who always remembered her hometown
00:06:31said it was the only
00:06:32normal carefree time
00:06:34my family ever had
00:06:35was in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
00:06:37France has the Mona Lisa.
00:06:39We have Judy Garland
00:06:40and the Wizard of Oz.
00:06:43We have the largest
00:06:44Judy Garland Wizard of Oz
00:06:45collection in the world.
00:06:46We have Dorothy's dress
00:06:48from the Wizard of Oz.
00:06:49We have a Winky spear,
00:06:51the Winky guards
00:06:52that guarded the witch's castle.
00:06:54We have the carriage
00:06:55from the scene
00:06:56with the rainbow horse.
00:06:57This is a first edition
00:06:59Wizard of Oz book.
00:07:02One of 10,000.
00:07:04The first truly American
00:07:05fairy tale.
00:07:07It is a great story
00:07:09by Frank Baum.
00:07:11Baum wrote
00:07:12a very simple
00:07:13children's parable
00:07:14about the journey
00:07:16and whom you meet
00:07:17on the journey
00:07:18and to look inside
00:07:19for what it is
00:07:20you think you need
00:07:21because it's there
00:07:22and you just have
00:07:23to tap into it.
00:07:24Walk into a room
00:07:25by accident
00:07:26where the Wizard of Oz
00:07:27is on
00:07:27and you are drawn to it.
00:07:29It is like
00:07:30this motion picture fireplace
00:07:32that just pulls you in.
00:07:35Most people don't know
00:07:36that the 1939 film
00:07:37was not the first film
00:07:38adaptation of
00:07:38The Wizard of Oz.
00:07:39It was actually made
00:07:40as a silent film in 1910.
00:07:45It's a silent film first,
00:07:47an animated film
00:07:48and finally in 1939
00:07:49this major musical
00:07:50motion picture
00:07:51that we know today.
00:07:53I love the part
00:07:54where it went from
00:07:55black and white
00:07:55to color
00:07:56and it was just like
00:07:57oh, how cool is that?
00:08:01People would stand up
00:08:03and clap and cheer
00:08:04when that happened
00:08:04in the film.
00:08:08Many people think
00:08:09that The Wizard of Oz
00:08:10was the first color film
00:08:11and it actually wasn't.
00:08:12I mean,
00:08:13the Technicolor process
00:08:13had been around
00:08:14for many years before that
00:08:15and even before that
00:08:16there were hand-tinted
00:08:17and toned films.
00:08:19One of the great things
00:08:20about Judy Garland
00:08:21to me
00:08:21has always been the fact
00:08:22that she came out
00:08:24on stage
00:08:24and it was like
00:08:25putting her arms
00:08:26around the audience.
00:08:29Who stole my heart away?
00:08:31Who makes me dream all day?
00:08:35It was always
00:08:36come along with me.
00:08:38Enjoy this.
00:08:39It's way bigger than a movie.
00:08:40It's a way of life.
00:08:41It's a way of thinking
00:08:42and we all watched
00:08:43The Wizard of Oz.
00:08:44It's a great movie.
00:08:47When Judy sings
00:08:48Somewhere Over the Rainbow
00:08:49that has always
00:08:50melted my heart.
00:08:53Somewhere over the rainbow
00:08:58way up high
00:09:02A collector named
00:09:03Michael Shaw
00:09:03who owned an extremely rare pair
00:09:05of screen-worn ruby slippers
00:09:07began loaning them
00:09:08to the museum in 1989
00:09:09to display during the festival.
00:09:12The slippers were
00:09:13in Grand Rapids
00:09:14four times.
00:09:15The last time
00:09:16the fourth time
00:09:17was in 2005.
00:09:19We had tremendous turnout
00:09:21and then the theft happened.
00:09:25The Judy Garland Museum
00:09:26in Grand Rapids
00:09:27suffered a major loss
00:09:29when a pair of
00:09:30Dorothy's ruby red slippers
00:09:31from The Wizard of Oz
00:09:32were stolen.
00:09:33I think some of you
00:09:34have heard about this.
00:09:35The famous pair
00:09:35that Judy Garland wore
00:09:37in The Wizard of Oz
00:09:38were stolen
00:09:39from a museum.
00:09:42Oh, for God's sake.
00:10:04What makes the ruby slippers so valuable
00:10:07is not necessarily what they are, but what they represent.
00:10:12They were in such beautiful, good condition when I got them.
00:10:16For years, I was able to bring them around the country, show them to people.
00:10:21I will never forget the day I met Michael Shaw and, you know, knocking on the door of
00:10:27his apartment, opening the door, and it was like I was in a movie museum.
00:10:31He had one of Dorothy's dresses, he had the Wicked Witches hat, he had a Maltese Falcon
00:10:36prop from Humphrey Bogart's 1941 film, Noir.
00:10:39He had the Ten Commandments from the famous Charlton Heston film, but the slippers were
00:10:44his biggest treasure.
00:10:46The shoes.
00:10:47Now, I was told about...
00:10:48May I hold one?
00:10:48Please, just be careful.
00:10:49These are fish-scale sequins and the color will come off with moisture on your hand.
00:10:53These are the ruby slippers.
00:10:55This is just a true love for you, isn't it?
00:11:00Absolutely.
00:11:03There are at least four pairs of slippers that we know for a fact Judy wore in the film.
00:11:07If you notice, the bottoms are padded and that's to protect the yellow brick road which
00:11:11was made out of plywood.
00:11:14They created several pairs because you're going to tromp around, sequins can go flying.
00:11:20She's on the yellow brick road, she's dancing, she's singing.
00:11:23One pair is with a private collector, one is at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and
00:11:28one is at the Smithsonian.
00:11:30They've been on display almost continuously since 1979, and that's because people demand
00:11:36them.
00:11:37We think that at least 100 million people over the years have come to see the ruby slippers.
00:11:42The fourth known pair, which Michael loaned to the Judy Garland Museum, was widely considered
00:11:47the most valuable, because it was Judy's primary set of shoes.
00:11:51They were five and a half in his pumps, covered with burgundy peau de soie fabric.
00:11:57He was really driven by this idea that he could share them with people and share the movie
00:12:00magic.
00:12:01I got a call, would I be willing to bring the shoes for the Judy Garland Festival?
00:12:05I said, sure.
00:12:07To have that pair of shoes, what was that like?
00:12:11Well, it was thrilling.
00:12:13It was magical.
00:12:15My entire family has been in show business.
00:12:18I started as a kid, I was seven, and started to get my name established in the industry.
00:12:26MGM was celebrating their 25th anniversary, and they were showing their movies in the MGM
00:12:32theater.
00:12:33I was invited, and that was the first place that I saw The Wizard of Oz, and I discovered
00:12:38who was sitting there.
00:12:40It was Judy Garland.
00:12:41Ms. Judy Garland.
00:12:42She was such a wonderful, wonderful human being.
00:12:45This is her actual dress.
00:12:48You bet you're Bippy.
00:12:51Yeah.
00:12:51Judy Garland.
00:12:52Wow.
00:12:53What's the catalog number of the...
00:12:55That's the production number.
00:12:56The shoes never left, you know, my hands until they were put on display.
00:13:00These are, I would say, the most sought after famous piece of memorabilia in the world.
00:13:06Michael Shaw's Hollywood.
00:13:07This is the way my generosity was repaid, by having them stolen.
00:13:11And where were they stolen?
00:13:12Out of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
00:13:30It was the day after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
00:13:35Winds at last check are now sustained at 175 miles per hour.
00:13:40That is an enormous storm.
00:13:41We were watching the news, and it was just a little ticker across the bottom saying,
00:13:46the ruby slippers have been stolen.
00:13:48I grew up near Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and I wrote two books fictionalizing the theft of
00:13:54the ruby slippers.
00:13:55I just thought it was a joke, and that would be something people would do up there.
00:14:02Kathy Johnson was scheduled to open up that Sunday morning, August 28th.
00:14:08I had just gotten out of the shower.
00:14:11And the phone rang.
00:14:16They're gone!
00:14:17When I heard from John, the first thing I did is sit down.
00:14:22Because I thought I was going to fall down.
00:14:25So I couldn't believe it.
00:14:26Truthfully, we cried.
00:14:28Grand Rapids is a great place to be, and Minnesota is Minnesota nice.
00:14:32I had to make the call to Michael Shaw.
00:14:35He wasn't really that upset.
00:14:38I became physically ill.
00:14:41And I was ill for at least three or four days.
00:14:43I couldn't eat.
00:14:44I mean, 35 years I had those wonderful shoes.
00:14:49They had brought so much happiness and joy.
00:14:51One of the most recognizable pair of shoes in motion picture history is MIA.
00:14:57They are one of four original pairs worn by Garland in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz.
00:15:01And we're all like, oh my God, who has the ruby slippers?
00:15:04Are they really gone?
00:15:05Did someone just hide them?
00:15:06The slippers are gone.
00:15:07Where are the slippers?
00:15:09All kinds of really good rumors.
00:15:12The ruby slippers!
00:15:13What have you done with them?
00:15:14Give them back to me or I'll...
00:15:16It's too late!
00:15:17I had one little girl call and say, I know where the shoes are.
00:15:20They're under my house.
00:15:24I came up with this ridiculous scenario of some obsessed collector having the shoes.
00:15:32Down in a cellar, on an altar, he would put on his size 92 blue and white gingham,
00:15:39and put on artificial braids and go down and light candles in front of the shoes.
00:15:48I'd love to spit them in the eye.
00:15:52I mean, it just, that question, I said, why?
00:15:56Why?
00:15:57Why did they take them?
00:15:59That's probably one of the biggest heists of all time.
00:16:06Grand Rapids Police started working on it right away.
00:16:08From everything I have learned about the investigation, it was not done well.
00:16:15I have never seen such Mickey Mouse police work or investigating it,
00:16:19so I felt like I was in Hooterville and I'm dealing with Barney Fife.
00:16:24I'd make sure there's a lot more security there than there was.
00:16:28I mean, a piece of plexiglass.
00:16:31So I figured, we'll find them in a short time.
00:16:33Somebody will talk.
00:16:35At first, really, it was like they're a pair of shoes.
00:16:38Up in the jail, and they had this piece of paper with the scarecrow, the lion, the tin man, and
00:16:46Dorothy,
00:16:47and the faces of all the officers on them transposed that worked that night when they were stolen.
00:16:53Ha!
00:16:59Ryan right now is an investigator for the Grand Rapids Police Department, and I have assigned him the case.
00:17:06I'm the fifth investigator that's worked on this case.
00:17:11Until August 28, 2005, at some point, somebody broke in and stole the slippers.
00:17:18This was the door that the entry was made.
00:17:21There was glass found on the floor here in the hallway.
00:17:24If we come in here to the main room, this is where the slippers were being displayed at.
00:17:32The thieves came in here, and they smashed the plexiglass case.
00:17:37And they took the slippers.
00:17:42We processed the crime scene, obviously collected glass shards and pieces that were found on the floor.
00:17:47We looked for any fingerprints.
00:17:50One sequin was found at the scene. There were no fingerprints.
00:17:54It was kind of the perfect crime.
00:18:00We put out a nationwide, they call it a bowl out, to be on the lookout for.
00:18:05It could be in the leg of the pink elephant, which is famous around here.
00:18:09I think they dumped them in the bottom of a mine pit, which we have many around here.
00:18:13The tiger pit's about 225 feet on average deep.
00:18:19There's this one tip where a man is looking at homes for sale online when he sees a pair of
00:18:24ruby slippers in somebody's listing.
00:18:26And he goes, they looked real.
00:18:29I found out who owns the property.
00:18:30This gentleman happens to own a company called Startifax.
00:18:34It is a celebrity memorabilia company that sells authentic celebrity items.
00:18:40They bought O.J. Simpson's white Ford Bronco when it finally was released as evidence.
00:18:47So my mind was turning.
00:18:49Police sent in cops posing as a husband and wife to investigate.
00:18:53One of them was checking out the kitchen with the real estate agent.
00:18:56The other one was, you know, snapping pictures of all the ruby slippers.
00:19:01They were not the authentic slippers.
00:19:05Fun as heck though, you gotta be creative when you're doing these types of investigations.
00:19:11At the beginning, it did feel like everybody was a suspect.
00:19:14We didn't take them, we tell you!
00:19:15We didn't take them! We didn't take them!
00:19:17What happened?
00:19:19Did somebody forget something?
00:19:21Was something overlooked?
00:19:22Was this an inside job?
00:19:24A reward has just been offered for $1 million.
00:19:30The reward will be given to anyone who can either prove where the slippers are or supply them to the
00:19:35Grand Rapids Police.
00:19:36Well, it was a blemish, a tarnish.
00:19:39You know, no museum director wants a major theft at their museum.
00:19:44We did offer precautionary measures.
00:19:48We asked US Bank in town to donate a safe.
00:19:53We could slip them out of the case, put them in the safe each night.
00:19:57And we asked Michael Shaw, he would not agree to having them handled every day.
00:20:04And I said, well look, you know, the delicacy of the shoes and the fact that you've got all the
00:20:09security makes this very improbable.
00:20:12I thought the place was completely secure.
00:20:16There was a full cement alarm that, you know, was on that door.
00:20:21Kelch said, we shut it off.
00:20:23And I said, you shut the alarm off?
00:20:25We had children going out our emergency exit doors.
00:20:28He said, we forgot to turn it back on.
00:20:33Okay, so that explained that.
00:20:36In hindsight, we should have had a video monitor on them 24 hours a day that was taping.
00:20:43As we dug in, we found out there was another alarm besides the one on the door.
00:20:47A motion sensor like this one that should have gone off even if the door alarm didn't.
00:20:52Police told me that was important for one very good reason.
00:20:56As you come through the door up high, you would have to hug the wall from the time you entered
00:21:03the building through that door,
00:21:05all the way to the door that led to where the slippers were kept.
00:21:08That gave me a clue that somebody had been in there and knew that line was up there.
00:21:12No doubt in my mind, somebody cased it out.
00:21:14How would they know to hug the wall?
00:21:19For a while, they thought that it might be an insurance scam.
00:21:23The ruby slippers were the most expensive item the museum ever had to insure.
00:21:28And if you need insurance in Grand Rapids, you need Bob Cushel.
00:21:33There's been many, many days that I wish that I had never heard of the ruby slippers.
00:21:46The owner wanted a million dollar policy.
00:21:51The theory was that Michael Shaw had paid somebody to steal them and then he would get to collect all
00:21:57that insurance money.
00:21:58It was infuriating to think that people that I would, and some of the cockamamie stories that I heard about,
00:22:06I had nothing to do with it.
00:22:08Michael never filed a lawsuit against the museum or me, but the insurance company filed a lawsuit against me personally.
00:22:17The insurance company, which held the policy on the shoes, argued they shouldn't have to cover the loss since the
00:22:23museum shut off the door alarm and allegedly didn't have functioning motion detectors or video surveillance.
00:22:29As the writing agent of the slippers, I got brought into the lawsuit.
00:22:37The commission on that sale was less than $100.
00:22:44It was horrible. Almost cost me my agency.
00:22:47We were just part of the scrap heap.
00:22:51Eventually, the lawsuit was settled out of court.
00:22:54At the end, the insurance company agreed to pay Michael Shaw $800 and some thousand dollars.
00:23:02I mean, only stupid, vindictive people would try to, you know, implicate me.
00:23:10So now I'm starting to get a little bit angry and I'd like to cool down.
00:23:15I don't think he had anything to do with their disappearance.
00:23:18Funny thing about it is The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite shows since I've been a kid.
00:23:25To this day, I watch it every time it's on TV.
00:23:29But every time I look at those ruby slippers, I guess I see dollar signs.
00:23:38It's easy to think we're in Minnesota and you've maybe heard about Minnesota Nice and all that.
00:23:43Who here would do this?
00:23:45But these shoes were valuable and everybody knew it.
00:23:50Making The Wizard of Oz, the idea was that Judy would have magic shoes.
00:23:55These are and probably always will be the most famous pair of shoes in the world.
00:23:59I mean, I would classify them as the Holy Grail.
00:24:01Anything to do with Judy Garland is going to be the most important.
00:24:05Dorothy's dress recently sold for around $1.3 million.
00:24:08But other items, you know, that have sold some of the Munchkin costumes, you know, those can garner $40,000,
00:24:14$50,000, $60,000 at times.
00:24:22So we're here in the Entertainment Collection storage room at the American History Museum here at the Smithsonian.
00:24:26And this is the original hat from the Scarecrow costume worn by Ray Bolger in The Wizard of Oz.
00:24:31This is the rest.
00:24:33You can see how it was made here, this sort of ratty pair of pants.
00:24:37And when he would wear it, he would pack it out with straw.
00:24:40And so we actually got some of the original straw as well.
00:24:43Gilbert Adrian was one of MGM's premier costume designers and really of the entire classic period of Hollywood film.
00:24:50Among the costumes that he's best known for for the film are the ruby slippers themselves.
00:24:58Many people don't realize that the slippers were originally silver.
00:25:02You see here it says silver shoes.
00:25:03And this is before they had changed them to ruby.
00:25:06So they had to experiment at Technicolor to find a shade of red that would photograph ruby.
00:25:13And they found that burgundy photographed the beautiful ruby red.
00:25:16And so actually they're the burgundy shoes.
00:25:20I mean you can say you have a Rembrandt and people say that's nice.
00:25:23But you can say you have the ruby slippers and everybody you meet is going to want to see the
00:25:26damn shoes.
00:25:34There is a black market for these artifacts.
00:25:36I mean there are individuals that will sell items or try to sell items on the black market and usually
00:25:42for a reduced price.
00:25:43Especially if they're stolen they don't have anything invested in them so they're willing to take a lower price.
00:25:48The theft of art, antiquities and memorabilia today is a billion dollar business and the FBI's art crime division is
00:25:55who monitors that.
00:25:57Props are valuable.
00:25:58In legitimate sales things like Audrey Hepburn's little black dress, the Saturday Night Fever dance floor and the Cowardly Lion
00:26:05suit have all fetched around a million dollars or more.
00:26:08But movie props and costumes weren't always valuable.
00:26:11I don't think anybody you know back then cared about the slippers after the film was made.
00:26:16Nobody had the foresight that these items were going to someday be worth huge you know millions of dollars.
00:26:25What turned the entire story around and the word memorabilia was created was the MGM auction in 1970.
00:26:36They contracted with the David Weiss auction company to sell everything but the main lot itself.
00:26:44$15,000 on the third and last call. Are you all through? Fair warning. And they are sold. The bidder's
00:26:49number please.
00:26:50Costumes, set pieces, props, everything just went wholesale. Racks of Munchkin costumes.
00:26:57Whatever they could move. You know the show boat from the show boat.
00:27:00One of the people that was brought in to help organize the auction was a man named Kent Warner.
00:27:05Kent Warner was a longtime costumer in Hollywood and one of the few people who really understood the value of
00:27:10Hollywood costumes at that moment in history.
00:27:12One of the major objects that he wanted to find was the ruby slippers.
00:27:18And so he was searching everywhere on the lot and there's an apocryphal story that goes that he kind of
00:27:23climbed up a ladder and you know looked ahead and there was a beam of light coming in setting the
00:27:28ruby slippers ablaze with the sequins glowing everywhere.
00:27:31And he knew at that moment you know he found them.
00:27:35Somebody said that he saw the glint of a sequin. No.
00:27:39They were on regular shoe racks and that's where he found them.
00:27:45It's hard to know which of these stories is true or even if either is true.
00:27:50Kent Warner passed away in 1984 and I think the real truth died with him.
00:27:54I was in the right place at the right time and I worked out a deal with him for the
00:27:59shoes, the dress, the witch's hat, a few other things.
00:28:03When I saw the shoes and I'm not lying to you, Maria, I started to cry.
00:28:08It's reported that Shaw was able to get his screen used pair of Judy's rubies for just 2,500 bucks.
00:28:16They were called the traveling pair for many years because he would take them to conventions, take them to malls.
00:28:21It's so ironic that they're called the traveling slippers because they've been traveling for almost 13 years now.
00:28:26That's the true story.
00:28:28Where have the slippers been? Who took them? Why?
00:28:39The biggest thing that ever happened to our museum was getting the slippers stolen.
00:28:43This is our number one suspect.
00:28:46Yes, yes.
00:28:48Ran into someone who wanted to work with law enforcement and they were in a little bit of trouble.
00:28:54I asked if they knew, you know, any dead bodies were stolen vehicles, could buy drugs or some ruby slippers.
00:29:02And this person said, that's funny you ask. I've seen them two days ago.
00:29:08Supposedly, these slippers were being housed in a little structure on a property north of Grand Rapids.
00:29:18So the area where we're at is probably 15 to 20 feet from this generator.
00:29:23And they were actually working on this generator.
00:29:25And this informant says that's exactly where we have to go.
00:29:30So I'm trying to formulate, like, how can I get these people away from the generator?
00:29:34It was a good hour and a half, two hours goes by.
00:29:36We're laying down in the woods, in the wood line, in the weeds, batting mosquitoes.
00:29:42And I recognize this is not happening soon enough.
00:29:46I reapply for a nightcap warrant.
00:29:49I decided the best sneak attack is probably just a direct attack.
00:29:54I walked right up the driveway, talked to the homeowner, and I said, I'm looking for the ruby slippers.
00:30:01He says to me, well, why didn't you just come knock on my door? I got them in the house.
00:30:08We get to a back bedroom.
00:30:10He pulls out this green box.
00:30:12It's got a green bow on it.
00:30:14And before he hands it to me, he tells me, he goes, you're not going to believe it when you
00:30:18see it.
00:30:19I bought these at a garage sale.
00:30:25I knew very quickly that these were not the stolen ruby slippers that we were looking for.
00:30:32If you look on the back, you know, made in China, so.
00:30:38I spent a lot of time in 2018 looking for the real ruby slippers, which was kind of a strange
00:30:44pastime.
00:30:45But then I found out I might not be the only one looking for the shoes.
00:30:50Our team found some classified ads that ran in the Los Angeles Times.
00:30:54I don't know if that has to do with the ruby slippers that are stolen or some other pair of
00:30:58ruby slippers, but the timing seems really curious to us.
00:31:01We traced the number back.
00:31:03It came back to witch, comma, wicked.
00:31:08The wicked witch.
00:31:10The number seems like a Chicago number, so maybe the wicked witch isn't in the West as far as we
00:31:16thought she was.
00:31:17Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system.
00:31:21My name is Maria, and my last name is Oz, not O-Z, but A-W-E-S.
00:31:28All right, thanks a lot.
00:31:30We tracked down the wicked witch, not in a castle on the other side of the Enchanted Forest, but a
00:31:35suburban home outside Chicago.
00:31:39I'm Randy Struthers, and I am a lifelong Wizard of Oz fan, but some people may know me as the
00:31:44wicked witch.
00:31:52I, for a long time, have been posting classified ads looking for shoes from the Wizard of Oz.
00:31:59And so at one point during that research, I had the brilliant idea to change my name to wicked witch.
00:32:04So when I was calling people associated with it, they might get a laugh out of it or maybe get
00:32:09scared and give me more information.
00:32:11Currently, I'm thinking that the shoes may have been stolen by someone who was paid to do it by someone
00:32:17local.
00:32:17The tips that I received do kind of match up with that being the case.
00:32:21Grand Rapids Police Department thought the thief was local, too.
00:32:25Randy knew more about Dorothy's slippers than anybody I had ever met.
00:32:29He creates high-end replicas that are hard to tell apart from the real slippers.
00:32:33I started making them when I was probably 11 or 12.
00:32:37I have a hard time, like, picking a favorite character in the movie, but I think I most identify with
00:32:43the wicked witch.
00:32:45Only because how badly she wanted the shoes.
00:32:48There is a relatively large market for it, which I think surprises a lot of people.
00:32:54It's something I enjoy doing.
00:32:55The average price usually would run about $3,000 for an aged style.
00:33:01One of my brother's friends, he's like, you know, you're like the best person in the world making these shoes.
00:33:06You've had people crying. They mean a lot.
00:33:10You know, this is the closest they're ever going to get to having a pair, and it's obviously important to
00:33:15them.
00:33:15I thought I was really on to something when I found those ads.
00:33:19I wish it had been exactly what you hoped for.
00:33:24The so-called wicked witch Randy Struthers wasn't the only one who wondered if the theft was part of something
00:33:29bigger.
00:33:30Grand Rapids Police did too, and so did I.
00:33:33Something much more nefarious than your small-town smash and grab.
00:33:37There is an individual that I reached out to for help to try to talk to individuals that wouldn't talk
00:33:43to me.
00:33:44He has connections with so many people, and it's amazing the information he can get.
00:33:49I can reach out to him and see if he'd be willing to talk to you, but my concern is
00:33:53the work he's done for me could put him in danger.
00:33:57There's people around here that don't take kindly to snitches.
00:34:10The informant agreed to talk to me, if we disguised his voice and filmed him in shadow.
00:34:15In an old speakeasy tunnel, in an antique shop.
00:34:24How did you get involved in looking into that case?
00:34:28All my officers that I trust got a hold of me and asked me to do some digging.
00:34:34And I'm allowed to move in and out of dangerous circles.
00:34:39How many people have you talked to about this?
00:34:43Say anywhere between 50 and 75 people.
00:34:46It ranges from grandma and grandpa down the street to the most dangerous and scariest people on the planet.
00:34:53Whoever grabbed them, they know they were worth money.
00:34:58Is this a case of a small-town theft?
00:35:01Or is this a theft that happened in a small town that's connected to something bigger?
00:35:07I think it's connected to something way bigger.
00:35:11And basically, if they dig too far into it, I think they're going to open up a can of worms
00:35:15that they're just not going to want to leave open.
00:35:18They're going to want to shut it.
00:35:19Just be done with it.
00:35:20Just walk away.
00:35:21Because it's going to get real.
00:35:24I think you're on the right path and, you know, there's other things that might be involved.
00:35:30Just, you know, be careful.
00:35:33Because this idea of bigger, organized crime, black market, that does seem like what you think this is really all
00:35:40about.
00:35:41Yes.
00:35:44At this point in the investigation, I wasn't really sure where things were going to go.
00:35:48But then we got our hands on something we weren't really supposed to have.
00:35:53Search warrants are public information.
00:35:55Usually.
00:36:01And we saw another search warrant about a call you got.
00:36:05I think you took the call last summer.
00:36:07Tell me about that one.
00:36:08Which call is that?
00:36:09This is the former secret service guy.
00:36:15Where were the...
00:36:16It turns out that our production team had uncovered a search warrant that mistakenly had not been sealed.
00:36:22This was not a cold case at all.
00:36:26That has to stay confidential.
00:36:27But we will give you the first information.
00:36:30We'll give you the story when it happens.
00:36:32The court's messed up because we sealed that document.
00:36:35But I'll tell you, you cannot say anything because the FBI is huge in advance.
00:36:40No.
00:36:40The second we find the shoes, as long as you keep it quiet, we will call you first.
00:36:57Shortly after getting back to Minneapolis from Grand Rapids, we did get a phone call from Investigator
00:37:02Mattson and Sergeant Stein.
00:37:03And they put everything in perspective.
00:37:07This case, this is almost a 13-year investigation.
00:37:12And we are on the cusp of potentially solving this case.
00:37:16I mean, I just have to be 100% assured that anything on your guise's end is not going to
00:37:24be disclosed.
00:37:25We agreed to keep the contents of the search warrant quiet.
00:37:28Not because we had to, but because I wanted to.
00:37:31Hoping it would help keep us on the inside track of this investigation if it broke open.
00:37:36You're the only ones holding the information we're currently on.
00:37:39So you're in a unique spot.
00:37:41You guys can be the exclusive as far as I'm concerned.
00:37:50The search warrant we found was based on a tip that came in on July 11, 2017.
00:37:55A retired Secret Service agent living in Florida had called investigators sniffing around to
00:38:00see if there was still a reward being offered for the return of the shoes.
00:38:04His name was Michael Incibella.
00:38:06And decades ago, he served on President Ronald Reagan's detail.
00:38:12That, to me, seemed like he was pretty credible.
00:38:16According to the warrant, an informant, I call a middleman, approached Incibella
00:38:20to see if he could help with a plan to exchange the shoes for reward money.
00:38:26Did this guy on the phone tell you who the middleman was then?
00:38:30No, never.
00:38:30He said he would not divulge that identity is what he told me.
00:38:34What we were told was, number one, the holder of the slippers wanted to do the right thing.
00:38:39And on the successful exchange of the slippers for any reward monies would give us the story
00:38:45of who stole them and where they've been.
00:38:47The thief was not identified and neither was whoever had the shoes,
00:38:50who was described as a heavy hitter with organized crime ties,
00:38:54which cast a little Scorsese-like sheen over this whole thing.
00:38:58I wondered about so many things, like who are these people?
00:39:01Who are they affiliated with?
00:39:02I didn't really know where this was going to lead at the time.
00:39:05We're not going to just give anyone money without knowing they're real slippers, the slippers.
00:39:11So we asked for proof of life.
00:39:13We need some kind of evidence, some kind of proof of life that they exist.
00:39:17I did receive photographs.
00:39:21I thought that is the best looking real shoes we've ever seen.
00:39:28And so then I got excited. I can tell you that much.
00:39:32The pictures aren't great.
00:39:34You know, we felt like, okay, we're probably on the right trail here.
00:39:38By this time, the million dollar reward was long gone.
00:39:41The only reward still in effect was a $200,000 one from the company that had insured the shoes.
00:39:47It wasn't enough.
00:39:48In fact, it was told that for that amount, you know, these shoes could go missing for another 10 years
00:39:53or sold.
00:39:54Be destroyed?
00:39:55Or destroyed.
00:39:56They weren't happy with law enforcement involvement,
00:39:58and they were not happy with the money that was being offered as a reward.
00:40:02They were disappointed the million dollar reward wasn't still going.
00:40:05So it almost sounds like they're trying to somehow blackmail you guys,
00:40:09kind of like they're trying to extort money from someone.
00:40:12It does sound like it.
00:40:13Now police wondered if there was not just the potential for theft charges,
00:40:17but maybe extortion charges.
00:40:19Even though I was told they wanted to do the right thing,
00:40:21the scope of the investigation has now turned.
00:40:25It's been 12 years.
00:40:27Our most important goal is to recover the ruby slippers.
00:40:30I recognize that we're reaching outside of the scope of my jurisdiction.
00:40:35That's when I contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
00:40:40They have an art crimes team.
00:40:42So we worked together to formulate what our next moves are going to be,
00:40:45how we're going to proceed.
00:40:47It took until July of 2018 to get this plan into place.
00:40:51When the FBI came on board, so did the U.S. Attorney's Office in North Dakota.
00:40:55I had joked that this case had some things in common with the movie Fargo.
00:40:59Now I was headed to Fargo for real.
00:41:02Which, by the way, Fargo is not in Minnesota,
00:41:04and a lot of people still think it is.
00:41:08My name is Matthew Greenlee.
00:41:11I'm an assistant U.S. attorney.
00:41:13We worked together closely with the FBI throughout the case
00:41:16from their involvement forward.
00:41:18Because of a conflict of interest,
00:41:20the case was being prosecuted by our neighbors to the Northwest.
00:41:22All of the various angles and intrigue associated with the case,
00:41:27I thought it was fascinating.
00:41:28And so I was looking at theft of an object of cultural heritage.
00:41:32And one of the benefits of that charge
00:41:34is that it carries a 20-year statute of limitations.
00:41:38The people with the slippers were negotiating.
00:41:41The middle man with the slippers thought
00:41:43he was only dealing with the insurance company.
00:41:45But he was wrong.
00:41:47They did not know they were talking to the FBI
00:41:49or Grand Rapids Police Department.
00:41:50And they ultimately settled on $400,000 payment.
00:41:54The holder of the slippers proposed a timeframe
00:41:58that we could meet and told us to choose the location.
00:42:03It took place at an art gallery in Minneapolis on July 10th, 2018.
00:42:13Everything was coordinated by the FBI, insurance, employees present, undercover FBI agents.
00:42:20Investigator Mattson and the FBI's special agent in charge of the case
00:42:23were next door monitoring the whole thing with headphones on.
00:42:29It really happened exactly as planned to a T.
00:42:34Almost exactly a year to the day since Michael Insabella had called in the tip,
00:42:40in walks the middle man.
00:42:41It's a man named Joe Friedberg who just happens to be Minnesota's most famous criminal defense attorney.
00:42:47Thanks.
00:42:48He represented a lot of hardcore criminals and even people said to have ties to the mafia.
00:42:53I have never found anybody in all these years that didn't have some redeeming characteristics.
00:43:01He also represented celebrities like Randy Moss, who once struck a traffic cop with his car on a busy street.
00:43:10He was able to get him off with no jail time as part of a plea to just two minor
00:43:14charges.
00:43:16Mr. Friedberg showed up. He had the ruby slippers in hand. He had them in cloth shoe bags.
00:43:23The insurance reps were there to take a quick look to decide if they appeared authentic, which they did.
00:43:29He was provided an actual cashier's check for $400,000.
00:43:35He actually left them while he went to the restroom.
00:43:40And the FBI had considered just grabbing them right at that point.
00:43:47When he returned, the undercover FBI agents had been replaced by the actual detectives in the case.
00:43:54And they interviewed Mr. Friedberg.
00:43:57I wanted to know how he got brought into this and how he knew the tipster Michael Incibella.
00:44:02It appears they'd met when they were both living in Florida.
00:44:06Perhaps they were in the same condo or the same neighborhood.
00:44:08As Incibella's son-in-law tells it in a book that he wrote,
00:44:11Back in 2017, the two were discussing celebrities that Incibella had worked security for once he left the Secret Service.
00:44:18That's when Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland's daughter, came up.
00:44:22They talk about that for a while, and then supposedly that's when Friedberg pipes up that he has access to
00:44:28Judy's stolen ruby slippers.
00:44:30He wants to help the person who has them get the reward money for them.
00:44:33And then he says, hey, does Incibella want to help him get those back?
00:44:37I believe Mr. Incibella was recruited to remove the actors, you know, one step further away from the investigation.
00:44:45I'm listening on an earpiece. I can hear the conversation.
00:44:50Immediately says, but I can tell you who did the burglary.
00:44:53Mr. Friedberg had said that Kent Anderson planned the theft of the ruby slippers.
00:44:59Suddenly, this is now a new player in the mix.
00:45:03Kent Anderson was a well-known thief in what's called a fence, which is someone who buys and sells stolen
00:45:08goods.
00:45:09Friedberg had represented him in the past.
00:45:11Kent's brother was Louie Anderson, a comedian from Minnesota who would talk about his infamous brother in his shows.
00:45:18I like Louie Anderson.
00:45:19I'm not the first celebrity in our house.
00:45:24My brother, the safe cracker, he was the first celebrity.
00:45:31While he said Anderson was behind the operation, Friedberg insisted he didn't know who actually broke in and stole the
00:45:39shoes.
00:45:39But he did say it could not have been Kent.
00:45:42Mr. Friedberg said that Kent Anderson wasn't able to execute it himself because he was too obese to commit the
00:45:49burglary.
00:45:51I tracked down one person who definitely believed Kent could have been involved in all this.
00:45:56His own son.
00:45:59My comment as a son, you're a fool if you think my father didn't set it up and was the
00:46:04mastermind behind it.
00:46:05Any major crime like that in Minnesota. Somehow my father had his fingers in him.
00:46:10And I'm pretty sure what happened was Kent told the guy, hey, there's these slippers, there's these rubies, we can
00:46:16go ahead, rip off the slippers.
00:46:18You know, he says, offensive.
00:46:20Connecting Kent to this case would prove difficult for one good reason.
00:46:25Nobody could speak with Mr. Anderson because he was deceased as of 2007.
00:46:32Friedberg was released after the interview.
00:46:35The ruby slippers were taking him into custody.
00:46:39Every spoke in this will had to work and one of the undercovers asked me if I was excited.
00:46:45Well, of course.
00:46:46There's still that nagging question of are they the authentic ruby slippers?
00:46:50The insurance agents in the room that day thought the slippers looked legit, but the FBI had to be sure.
00:47:09We were working a flight from Minneapolis to Washington, D.C.
00:47:13I noticed there were two FBI agents pre-boarded the flight carrying a box.
00:47:18They were holding onto it for dear life.
00:47:22They put it in the middle seat.
00:47:23One of the agents on the window seat, the other one was on the aisle seat, and they had a
00:47:27seat belt over it.
00:47:30My co-worker, she kept asking me, what do you think was on the box?
00:47:33They kept teasing us saying, watch the news, watch the news.
00:47:37So a couple of weeks later, I learned that the slippers were being transported to the Smithsonian.
00:47:42I didn't even know I was transporting a huge piece of American history.
00:47:47Have you seen the movie?
00:47:48No.
00:47:49Haven't seen The Wizard of Oz?
00:47:50No.
00:47:51I heard about it.
00:47:52So it made me feel good because I'm part of history.
00:47:57When I first got word that the FBI was bringing in this recovered pair for us to take a look
00:48:01at, it was shock and amazement.
00:48:03You know, I had followed the case for so long.
00:48:07I am a objects conservator at the National Museum of American History.
00:48:12I've worked on entertainment collections from C-3PO and R2-D2 to the ruby slippers.
00:48:22The FBI agents, when they entered the lab and they're carrying this box, everyone's a little bit quiet because I
00:48:29think there's this moment of unknown.
00:48:32So we open it and immediately I could see the shoes and I could tell there was something special.
00:48:40I see a clear bead that has been painted red.
00:48:44And it was this sort of eureka moment because I remember seeing those on the shoes in the museum's collection.
00:48:50We had spent time talking with costumers and they said that if the bead had come off during the filming
00:48:58and if they didn't have time to go get a new red bead, well, it would be fine.
00:49:02They would get a clear bead painted red. And that was sort of the moment where I said, like, yes,
00:49:07these shoes, not only are they the same materials or the same construction, but they actually have the same repairs
00:49:14and flaws.
00:49:15And so everyone just sort of like just kind of relaxes and starts celebrating about just this momentous occasion.
00:49:25We were all sort of sworn not to mention this. I couldn't even tell my wife that I was involved
00:49:30in it.
00:49:30The shoes that the FBI had recovered were actually the reciprocal matches to our pairs.
00:49:36Our right went with their left. Our left went with their right.
00:49:40The shoes were likely switched at some point.
00:49:46After the FBI said, we're going to go public.
00:50:03Good afternoon, everyone.
00:50:04We're here today to share with you the recovery of one of the most significant and cherished pieces of movie
00:50:13memorabilia in American history.
00:50:15Dorothy's Ruby Slippers from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.
00:50:30Working very collaborative with our local partners in Grand Rapids, we received a new tip and some information that we
00:50:36diligently pursued only to later lead this summer to the recovery of these slippers.
00:51:08I really felt for these guys.
00:51:1113 years they worked on this for what now just felt like an honorable mention.
00:51:16It's kind of like in the movies, how it all comes down.
00:51:19The FBI shows up, you're pushed out of the way.
00:51:22So it was just a natural reaction for me to sit there and wonder why.
00:51:26The reality of this investigation is, it's like a baseball game.
00:51:29Hey, we get everyone on base.
00:51:31The FBI hits the home run and wins the World Series.
00:51:37I had two representatives from the FBI that came over, two wonderful women that could tell me only about as
00:51:44much as they knew, except for the, you know, for the fact that the shoes were in their hands.
00:51:48They were safe.
00:51:50My jaw just dropped.
00:51:52And the only thing I could say was, what?
00:51:55And they said, we have the shoes.
00:51:58I mean, you have to imagine, folks, I waited 13 years to hear those four words, we found your shoes.
00:52:07I mean, thank God the shoes were not destroyed.
00:52:11But heaven only knows how many feet went into that pair of shoes between then and 13 years later, now.
00:52:20Our staff was just giggling and greeting people that day.
00:52:25The theft and the recovery are the biggest news that's ever been generated for Grand Rapids, by far.
00:52:31So the slippers are back.
00:52:33But who actually stole the shoes?
00:52:35Now that we have them, where do we go from here?
00:52:47So by the end of 2018, the shoes were safe, sitting inside an evidence locker at the FBI.
00:52:52We thought we knew some of the players, including the alleged mastermind behind it, Kent Anderson.
00:52:58But not who actually stole the shoes, or who had them for all these years.
00:53:03As far as Grand Rapids Police, I mean, where are you guys at right now?
00:53:06We've ramped down our part of the investigation.
00:53:10But I want someone held accountable.
00:53:12The FBI is looking at records, phone records, stuff like that, who was communicating at the time during the buildup
00:53:19to the recovery.
00:53:20Who knows where this is going to lead?
00:53:22Because there's a thought that organized crime could be involved in this as well.
00:53:28It's not long after the return of the shoes that Sergeant Stein tells our team to read a book called
00:53:33The Rockwell Heist.
00:53:35For me, when I read that book, they both went down the same way.
00:53:38They reeked identical.
00:53:39You couldn't get it any closer.
00:53:42And I don't believe in coincidence like that, you know?
00:53:45This is how I met Bonnie Lindbergh and learned about what was originally Minnesota's biggest art heist.
00:53:50And I wondered if the two crimes decades apart and less than 200 miles apart could have been committed by
00:53:56the same thieves.
00:53:59Our gallery was in St. Louis Park, which is just the first suburb west of Minneapolis.
00:54:07On February 16, 1978, we hosted an opening featuring the work of Norman Rockwell near his birthday in February.
00:54:16We had a complete collection of his 332 Saturday Evening Post Covers.
00:54:24We had limited editions, but we also had original Norman Rockwell paintings.
00:54:29So we had a lovely evening.
00:54:32We had lots of people.
00:54:34It was wonderful.
00:54:35And about midnight, I received a call from Elaine, and she said,
00:54:42They're gone.
00:54:46And I said,
00:54:48What do you mean?
00:54:50And she said,
00:54:52The paintings have been stolen.
00:54:54In the dark of early morning, the thieves made their way directly to the Norman Rockwell display,
00:54:59quickly took the seven most valuable Rockwell originals.
00:55:02They also took an untitled Renoir valued at $125,000.
00:55:07At some point, they discovered the alleged Renoir was actually a fake.
00:55:10But at the time of the theft, back in 1978, the value of these paintings was at least half a
00:55:16million dollars.
00:55:17There was an incident the day before the theft, where three gentlemen came into the gallery.
00:55:24They were more interested in door casings and the doors and just casing the joint, really.
00:55:32Most of the Rockwell paintings were eventually tracked down in Brazil more than 20 years later,
00:55:37where a gallery owner thought he'd bought them legally.
00:55:39A couple others were found in Philadelphia.
00:55:42I'm happy to report all of the paintings are back in the hands of the original owners.
00:55:49No one was ever arrested or charged in the case, and while it was unclear who stole the Rockwells,
00:55:54the journalist who wrote the Rockwell heist book said a source told him that Kent Anderson was involved.
00:56:01If you wanted a theft committed or a crime committed and you were out of town,
00:56:06there were a certain group of individuals who you would hire to do it.
00:56:12One was Kent Anderson.
00:56:16I asked Kent's son whether he knew if his dad was involved in the Rockwell heist.
00:56:21He set it all up. We were driving by there one time and he told me that him and those
00:56:25guys hit that place.
00:56:26If Kent Anderson did play a role in the Rockwell heist, the truth died with him in 2007.
00:56:31He was never charged and it's unclear how serious the FBI was about him as a suspect.
00:56:36But someone else's name came up in all this too.
00:56:39Joe Friedberg, the attorney who returned the slippers.
00:56:42He was a young lawyer back then and he'd been asked to help return the Rockwell paintings too.
00:56:46But he declined after an oversight board for lawyers told him he could be risking a felony charge.
00:56:52So what was different this time? No idea.
00:56:58Do you believe in coincidences?
00:57:00I believe in coincidences but there seem to be a lot of coincidences with these two particular cases.
00:57:05There is more to this operation than I think anybody realizes. Would you agree?
00:57:10I absolutely agree now.
00:57:12When we were first doing the investigation we focused heavily on the local.
00:57:17There's got to be a connection there.
00:57:19Because most people don't do a smash and grab unless they know they can get away with it.
00:57:23It turns out Sergeant Stein was right.
00:57:25The thief himself lived in Grand Rapids all along.
00:57:36The FBI immediately started to gather data and analyze data.
00:57:41They started to put together phone records and they began with Mr. Friedberg's phone.
00:57:46Investigating who he was talking to before and after the return of the slippers is how authorities say they found
00:57:52the thief.
00:57:52Keep in mind at this point it had been almost 20 years since they'd been stolen.
00:57:57I don't know what I expected the thief to look like but the man I saw was not it.
00:58:03I don't have a mug shot but here's a picture of him outside the courthouse looking old as f**k.
00:58:08That's one way to say it.
00:58:10It's the deathbed confession from a dying mobster who's decided to set the record straight.
00:58:14Terry John Martin is admitting he stole the shoes from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
00:58:20It was his last big score after a life of crime.
00:58:24Terry Martin was living in the Grand Rapids area at the time of the theft.
00:58:29He had participated in other thefts or heists in his life so this wouldn't have been his first criminal conviction
00:58:35by any means.
00:58:36In all seriousness, Martin was suffering from COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, at the time authorities connected him to the
00:58:44theft.
00:58:44We started asking around town. No one knows him.
00:58:48It was really disappointing to me that someone here did it. I was really bummed.
00:58:55This was an evil thing. It was an evil thing done for money.
00:58:59And it wasn't done for love or to make somebody happy. It was done for money.
00:59:04Terry Martin and Kent Anderson were literally thick as thieves.
00:59:08Anderson's son told me that they worked jobs together.
00:59:12Authorities were able to execute a search warrant on Terry Martin's home and found good reason to believe he was
00:59:17involved.
00:59:17This warrant at the Martin residence had to do with his wife's immigration status.
00:59:23Mr. Martin's wife was asked if she knew anything about a significant event that occurred at the Judy Garland Museum
00:59:30in 2005.
00:59:32And she immediately said, the slippers? Is that what this is about?
00:59:36She said he would cooperate with law enforcement and talk about his role with the ruby slippers theft if we
00:59:43could assure him that we would not prosecute his wife for immigration crimes.
00:59:52Terry Martin said that he had cased the Judy Garland Museum.
01:00:01He said that he brought a sledge, like a handheld sledgehammer, used that to break the window in the rear
01:00:09door of the museum.
01:00:11He opened the door, let himself in. He said that he went straight to the plexiglass case where the ruby
01:00:19slippers were held.
01:00:24He grabbed the slippers, ran out. He said the whole thing took 30 seconds.
01:00:35And then sped away.
01:00:37Martin said that he threw the hammer in a field and that he went home and put the ruby slippers
01:00:44in a bag and hid them on part of his property.
01:00:47He claims that he brought them to Kent Anderson to fence them, and that upon showing them to Kent, Terry
01:00:55Martin said that was the first time he realized that there weren't actual rubies in the ruby slippers.
01:01:10Terry Martin was indicted on one count of theft of an object of cultural heritage.
01:01:16He pled guilty to that charge.
01:01:18Mr. Martin was sentenced to time serve, one year of supervised release, and then he was ordered to pay approximately
01:01:25$23,000 of restitution.
01:01:27He admitted his guilt, so I think he wanted to take responsibility and move on with his life, the little
01:01:33life he has left.
01:01:34Thank you guys.
01:01:36Appreciate it.
01:01:42He said that he acted alone.
01:01:45We were skeptical of various parts of Terry Martin's explanation of what happened.
01:01:51I'm not aware of any evidence linking Kent Anderson to the theft.
01:01:56Did it seem maybe convenient to anybody that he was pointing to a dead man as being the one who
01:02:02orchestrated this theft?
01:02:03It seemed extremely convenient to the FBI.
01:02:06What I wanted to know was if Kent Anderson wasn't in on this and didn't have the shoes all these
01:02:11years, who did?
01:02:13Keeping our mouths shut about that original search warrant no one was supposed to see was about to pay off
01:02:18in terms of this one last scoop.
01:02:21One of the reasons I want to talk to you today is so that there is a corrected version of
01:02:29what happened in the public record.
01:02:36It appears to us, meaning the prosecution and the investigators, that the Kent Anderson story was fabricated to deceive law
01:02:47enforcement and dissuade them from doing a further investigation.
01:02:55Ultimately, we learned that Terry Martin stole the ruby slippers with help from Jerry Soliderman.
01:03:04A second man has now been charged in connection with theft of the Wizard of Oz ruby slippers from a
01:03:09Minnesota museum.
01:03:10And here we have another guy with an oxygen tank.
01:03:13The indictment also says Soliderman threatened to release a sex tape of a woman and quote, take her down with
01:03:19him, end quote, if she didn't keep her mouth shut about the slippers.
01:03:23This whole story is just bananas and keeps getting weirder and weirder.
01:03:27Like Terry Martin, Jerry Soliderman was a known thief.
01:03:31He was also a fence operating in stolen goods for decades in Minnesota.
01:03:40Terry Martin and Jerry Soliderman had cased the Judy Garland Museum.
01:03:49We know that both Terry Martin and Jerry Soliderman went to the museum together in Terry Martin's van and they
01:03:58left together.
01:03:59Terry Martin was driving, so he gave the ruby slippers to Jerry Soliderman, who said that these aren't rubies.
01:04:07He could see that the sequins were threaded, so they weren't actual gemstones.
01:04:13We knew that Soliderman was with Martin because we were eventually able to track down a traffic stop.
01:04:22And they were pulled over because Terry Martin was speeding so fast to get away from the burglary.
01:04:31Soliderman had the ruby slippers in his pants at the time that they were stopped.
01:04:39You've got to be kidding.
01:04:42In his pants, was he specific about wear in his pants?
01:04:52The officer tried to search the van and we don't even know if he was aware of the burglar yet.
01:04:59Terry Martin would not voluntarily consent and there must not have been probable cause.
01:05:07Had the officer found the ruby slippers, the case would have been over right then and there.
01:05:11We had a light-hearted moment in an interview with Mr. Soliderman where he acknowledged as much.
01:05:18We found a baby bottle sterilizer and we were told that that was used to try to destroy DNA evidence.
01:05:29It had some red flecks in it that were consistent with the sequins on the ruby slippers.
01:05:35The FBI labs determined that it's the same type of material as the sequins.
01:05:40He agreed to plead guilty, but that never happened.
01:05:44Like Terry Martin, Jerry Soliderman was ill at the end of his life.
01:05:48And even though people might have thought that oxygen tank was a sympathy play,
01:05:51and hey, maybe it worked for Terry Martin who got off easy, it wasn't.
01:05:56He died in 2025.
01:06:00Jerry Soliderman possessed the ruby slippers from the time of the theft until July 7th, 2018.
01:06:07That's the entire time they were missing until Joe Friedberg brought them back hoping for the reward money.
01:06:13So where did Soliderman keep them?
01:06:15Good question.
01:06:17An even better answer.
01:06:21We're actually probably about 15 minutes from downtown Minneapolis as the crow flies.
01:06:27My next-door neighbors live right over there.
01:06:29Jerry Winker's neighbors were the Solidermans.
01:06:32Jerry was a great guy.
01:06:33He was just a genuine, nice guy.
01:06:36Jerry would be, like, working on his garden, and he came up to me one day and said,
01:06:41you know, someone's been stealing my vegetables.
01:06:43Is there any chance that I can put up a security system?
01:06:46And I'm like, yeah, sure, that's fine with me.
01:06:51My wife and I thought it was really odd.
01:06:54It wasn't the vegetables you wanted to watch.
01:06:56In the movie, they say there's no place like home.
01:06:59Well, I've lived here since 1992, and right on the other side of the fence is where the ruby slippers
01:07:04were buried for seven years.
01:07:10I mean, I tell my friends at work, and they're just like, what?
01:07:14Jerry Slitterman described to us how he stored the slippers.
01:07:19He put them in his garage in the soffit, like the eaves overhanging the outside of his garage for years,
01:07:28and then later buries them in his yard.
01:07:31He buried them in a clear Tupperware-type container.
01:07:35I mean, we do get a lot of rain and snow up here, so thank goodness he put them in
01:07:40something like that.
01:07:42Authorities got warrants to search Slitterman's house, and he was sitting on a lot more stolen items than just the
01:07:48slippers.
01:07:48Came in with the bolt cutters, cut open the locks, and just article after article.
01:07:54I mean, brass, art, paintings, furs, fancy rugs. It just kept coming out.
01:08:02It is a miracle that these iconic shoes survived these two knuckleheads.
01:08:08As for all the other characters in this story,
01:08:11Michael and Sabella, the Secret Service agent turned tipster, died four years after the slippers were returned,
01:08:17and he was never charged with any wrongdoing.
01:08:19Joe Friedberg, the attorney and middleman who returned the shoes, died as well.
01:08:24He was never charged with a crime either.
01:08:26He had just one thing to say on the record about the theft,
01:08:28and to this day, I think I'm the only one in the media he ever talked to about his role
01:08:33in the case.
01:08:34And I maintain the fact that I did absolutely nothing wrong.
01:08:37In fact, I thought that I was doing everything perfectly right.
01:08:41Whether it's organized crime or the mafia, is there any truth to that?
01:08:46It does strike me as an opportunistic crime.
01:08:48It just seems at odds with somebody with the mob or the organized crime was pulling the strings.
01:09:09With the investigation winding down, the FBI wanted to return the shoes to Michael Shaw.
01:09:14The insurance company technically owned the slippers, but allowed Michael Shaw to buy them back for about $800,000,
01:09:21the amount that they had paid out after the theft.
01:09:24Shaw's relationship with the Judy Garland Museum had not thawed since that very fateful night back in August of 2005.
01:09:34Over those 13 years, Michael and I didn't talk at all.
01:09:39We probably should have, and then rumors on either end started and miscommunication.
01:09:45With John Kelsch deciding to take over as curator, it was up to the museum's new director to make a
01:09:51plan to set things right.
01:09:52The FBI told me that the slippers were going to be returned to Michael.
01:09:58And I had actually said, I think it would be a very poetic ending if we could return the slippers
01:10:05to Michael.
01:10:06I thought that would be a nice way for us to bury the hatchet.
01:10:09It had been years since I interviewed Michael Shaw.
01:10:13What's it going to be like when you lay your eyes on these shoes again?
01:10:17God.
01:10:18It'll be Mardi Gras, party, Happy New Year.
01:10:23Everything rolled into one for me.
01:10:26I was excited for him because his dream of getting the slippers back was going to come true.
01:10:31He was now in his late 80s.
01:10:53They're in very good shape.
01:10:58How do I feel?
01:11:01It's like welcoming back a new friend that I haven't seen in years.
01:11:08We want to formally return your shoes to you.
01:11:12And we thought it was fitting that we do it here in the museum where they were stolen.
01:11:16But thanks to you, they're back.
01:11:17You know, it was a great joint effort between us and Grand Rapids Police Department.
01:11:24And I went and gave him a big hug.
01:11:29Michael Shaw started to cry.
01:11:31I cried.
01:11:33It was emotional.
01:11:42Michael Shaw took his traveling shoes on one last world tour before he decided to sell them at an auction.
01:11:48Stand down, sir.
01:11:49You okay?
01:11:50Oh, he's ready to take me down.
01:11:52That's why I didn't want to touch him.
01:11:53I think he knows they're a pretty big liability to have because of their value.
01:11:58He's getting older.
01:12:00He's just ready to move on.
01:12:03Randy Struthers knows a little bit about the challenges of owning a piece of Oz.
01:12:07So you have to think about, you know, keeping it secure, camera system, insurance, and all of that.
01:12:12In 2016, 2017, I became aware of a woman who thought she may have Glinda's wand.
01:12:19Glinda the Good Witch was always my favorite character in the film.
01:12:23As a kid, I wanted that dress and that wand.
01:12:26I was able to offer her $20,000 for it.
01:12:30But the thing is, keeping something that historically important and expensive, I did not really plan for that.
01:12:38And I just could not afford to keep it long-term.
01:12:42Ended up selling for $400,000.
01:12:47The new owner found a big way to show it off, capitalizing on Wicked Fever at the end of 2024.
01:12:53Two singing superstars heading to the big screen in a movie adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, Wicked.
01:12:59I'm glad to say that same wand was just on the Drew Barrymore show.
01:13:04Ariana Grande, who played the new Glinda the Good Witch, was on the show.
01:13:08It was presented to Ariana Grande to hold during her interview.
01:13:14So that was something nice.
01:13:15Like, I have a connection to Ariana Grande that she knows nothing about and probably never will.
01:13:19Thank you, guys. It's been fun.
01:13:23Everybody wondered how much Shaw's pair of shoes would sell for.
01:13:26Because even before they were notorious, they were special.
01:13:30One of his slippers and one of the Smithsonian's, because remember they were mismatched,
01:13:34were part of what's dubbed the number one pair.
01:13:36Those are going to be Judy Garland's primary set.
01:13:38The number one pair you're going to find in a couple of the close-up scenes when Dorothy taps her
01:13:44heels together at the end of the film.
01:13:46Tap your heels together three times.
01:13:49That's also the number one pair.
01:13:51And think to yourself, there's no place like you.
01:13:57It's the most famous pair of ruby slippers that will ever be sold.
01:14:01So I think there will be a lot of people, you know, interested in buying this pair over any other
01:14:06just because of the mystery around them.
01:14:08Even back in 2018, people thought the shoes would go for millions.
01:14:13The shoes are worth probably a couple million dollars.
01:14:16We would sell them for five million plus.
01:14:17How much do you think they're worth, Andy?
01:14:19I wouldn't let those babies go for anything less than ten million.
01:14:21I mean, you can dress them up or dress them down and the sensible heel makes your calves look amazing.
01:14:28Well, we'll be there when the slippers go on the block, December 7th.
01:14:32They belong in Judy Garland's birthplace. Where else?
01:14:35The governor tweeted that we're getting the damn slippers.
01:14:38As of now, the Judy Garland Museum is hoping to actually be the highest bidder to win them back for
01:14:43good.
01:14:44John and Janie were pretty tight-lipped about how much they had raised for bidding.
01:14:48Tight-lipped? As in, they wouldn't tell me.
01:14:51We're nervous. We don't know what to expect.
01:14:54To bring the ruby slippers back to Grand Rapids, Minnesota would be remarkable.
01:14:59They do get them back. They go to another agent to insure them.
01:15:16I will never forget stepping into the auction house and getting my first look at those slippers.
01:15:22They were stunning.
01:15:25Every detail, every imperfection down to the painted glass bead was there.
01:15:30These are the most important film artifacts of all time.
01:15:34The tsunami of interest and excitement is coming to a crest today.
01:15:40We're going to find out what these things sell for.
01:15:42For the rest of my life, I will remember the day the slippers made history all over again.
01:15:48Ladies and gentlemen, these are the Screen Match Ruby Slippers, Lot 182. Let's open the bid app.
01:15:52$1,550,000.
01:16:10We were some of the only people allowed to film the auction.
01:16:13But we had strict instructions that we could not show any of the bidders other than John and Jamie.
01:16:18Bids could come in on the phone, in person, online, or by fax.
01:16:24Fax.
01:16:25Ladies and gentlemen, this is the big lot. This is the crescendo, right?
01:16:28These are the Screen Match Ruby Slippers, Lot 182. Let's open the bid app.
01:16:33$1,550,000.
01:16:34$1,550,000.
01:16:35$1,550,000. Now to go to $1,600,000. Now to go to $1,600,000.
01:16:37What do you have?
01:16:38Okay, that's a nice start.
01:16:39$2,000,000, $2.1,000, $2.3,000, $2.3,000, $2.4,000, $6,000,000, $7,000
01:16:44,000, $8,000,000.
01:16:46I can't even tell you what this was like.
01:16:48People were dropping million dollar bids like it was no big deal.
01:16:52$10,000,000. All right, well, that's the way to go.
01:16:56I've got the $11,000,000. $11,000,000. $12,000,000.
01:17:01A dozen eggs, a dozen million. $15,000,000.
01:17:04So John and Jamie were not even able to bid by this point.
01:17:07I mean, $15,000,000?
01:17:10You want to just count by millions? That's fine with me.
01:17:12Actually, now it's $16,000.
01:17:15And now it was just a matter of how high they'd go for.
01:17:19$17,000,000. $19,000,000 here. $20,000,000.
01:17:23Well, that'll fix your wagon. $22,000,000. $23,000,000. $24,000,000.
01:17:29I'm at $24,000,000. $25,000,000. Now to go to $25,000,000. $26,000,000.
01:17:35Now to go to $26,000,000. What do you think? $26,200,000 is all I need.
01:17:40I say that tongue-in-cheek.
01:17:41Fair warning then. At $26,000,000. Anybody else? Anyone else?
01:17:48Then. $26,200,000. $27,000,000.
01:17:56Just wait until the last minute. That's okay.
01:17:58$27,000,000. $28,000,000. Now to go to $28,200,000.
01:18:03I'll take the cut bid at $28,200,000 if you want to save $100,000,000.
01:18:06Any other bids? All bids in now. All bids. Fair warning. Fair warning.
01:18:10No cut bids. No other advances. Then do it. $28,000,000,000.
01:18:16Ladies and gentlemen, the Ruby Slippers just sold for $28,000,000,000.
01:18:25The hammer price for these slippers was $28,000,000,000.
01:18:33The previous world record was the Marilyn Monroe Subway dress that sold for $5.52,000,000 in the Debbie
01:18:40Reynolds sale in 2011.
01:18:42And this just absolutely shattered that record.
01:18:47Let's put this in perspective. For $28,000,000, you could buy the same private jet as David Beckham.
01:18:53You could rocket into space more than a dozen times, or you could snag about four and a half of
01:18:57those bananas taped to the wall.
01:18:59Let me tell you a little secret. You know how much the slippers cost to make? $15.
01:19:08After the auction, I had one question. Can you tell me who bought the shoes?
01:19:12Oh, I cannot, unfortunately.
01:19:17Unless the buyer indeed wants his name to be known.
01:19:24It was emotional. Like, I was shaking.
01:19:29I think everybody in the room just was shocked.
01:19:35These shoes have been on a really long journey, and whoever got them wanted them very, very badly.
01:19:43We gave it our best shot.
01:19:46$28,000,000 is beyond anything we could have ever, ever raised.
01:19:53The museum didn't go home empty-handed. They did get themselves a very nice pair of slippers, after all.
01:19:59All right, folks, the sale's almost a wrap. The Bill Mack painting, The Wizard of Oz Ruby Slippers.
01:20:04Something came over me with this Bill Mack painting. He's from Minnesota.
01:20:09And I just had a feeling. I was like, we need it. And we can't go home empty-handed.
01:20:14So, I just, I don't know. I just raised my hand.
01:20:19If they're warning anybody else, $20,000, you got it, sister. Who gets that?
01:20:23Bitter number 100. I'm going to give you applause.
01:20:28Awesome.
01:20:29The slippers are coming back to Minnesota in a painting.
01:20:33There's no place like home.
01:20:47There's no place like home.
01:20:50And we love Judy!
01:20:55Today in Grand Rapids, the festival is back in full school.
01:21:00And the slippers are back on display. Sort of.
01:21:04The guy with the buttons is back.
01:21:06Judy Garland Festival is, to me, is remembering the greatest entertainer that ever lived.
01:21:12And we found this fashion icon.
01:21:16Well, we've started a small ruby slipper theft exhibit now.
01:21:21It's just continued to make it solid on the map.
01:21:25Grand Rapids, Minnesota, birthplace of Judy Garland.
01:21:28It's just made that more upfront even than nothing could have, really.
01:21:34We caught up with Investigator Mattson at the Who Stole the Ruby Slippers dinner party.
01:21:40Guys like me, we don't get to work on cases like this.
01:21:44Like, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
01:21:46So to be a part of that was just a lot of fun.
01:21:50It always was and still is the Grand Rapids Police Department's case.
01:21:54But it was time to give credit where credit was due.
01:21:57The FBI, had they not been there, we might not have had a recovery.
01:22:01As for Bob Stein, he retired.
01:22:04So here I am, older, heavier, and bearded.
01:22:10I always told the guys that, hey, the job's never done until we find them slippers.
01:22:13And I didn't think in my lifetime we would find them.
01:22:18I feel exonerated because there is a local person.
01:22:21Because everyone told me, no, they came up from the city.
01:22:23There's just no way, there's nobody here.
01:22:24Everyone has different opinions.
01:22:26Now I can go, see, I told you, it had to be someone connected to the area.
01:22:36There was a lot of bad stuff that came from this.
01:22:39People accusing each other, friendships lost, families.
01:22:43Look what Kelsch went through.
01:22:45Look what the museum went through.
01:22:47And I think it caused problems with people's faith in our department, too,
01:22:50to solve the crime about just a silly old pair of slippers.
01:22:54Well, the slippers weren't silly.
01:22:56They meant a lot to a lot of people.
01:22:58And they believed in the slippers and they gave them hope, right?
01:23:03I still remember one particular older lady when I was still working.
01:23:07She was almost in tears or maybe crying a little bit when the shoes were recovered
01:23:11because it meant so much to her as a little girl.
01:23:17The truth is that it isn't just the slippers that mean a lot to people.
01:23:21It's the movie itself.
01:23:23It's the experience.
01:23:24It's the music and the lines.
01:23:26And it still draws an audience today.
01:23:29And I think it always will.
01:23:31Because there's no place like home.
01:23:33And that's what this movie reminds people of.
01:23:35Home.
01:23:36Home.
01:23:38Home Home.
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