The elderly gangster who stole the famous red shoes from the movie "The Wizard of Oz" thought they were made of real precious stones.
Terry John Martin, 76, stole perhaps the most coveted prop in movie history—the red shoes worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz,” but he mistakenly thought the shoes were covered in real gemstones, CBS reports.
According to his lawyer, Martin's former "colleague" convinced him to steal the shoes in 2005 and "retire." Martin planned to strip the rubies from the famous shoes and sell them through a buyer, but he soon discovered that the stones were actually made of glass.
Martin was not charged with theft until 2023. In October 2023, he pleaded guilty and said he used a hammer to break down the door of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, before breaking a display case and making off with Hollywood artifacts. The shoes were insured for $1 million.
Martin said he got rid of the shoes when he realized he had made a mistake.
The FBI recovered them in a sting operation in Minneapolis in 2018 after a man approached his insurer and said he could get them back, but demanded $200,000 more than the reward offered. The shoes are still in the possession of the FBI, which has never revealed how they managed to track them down.
Dane DeCray, Martin's attorney, wrote in a memo that the former gangster broke the law for the first time in a decade, saying he had given up a life of crime after his latest prison sentence.
DeCray argued that his client was unaware of the cultural significance of the shoes and had never even seen the 1939 musical.
The ailing thief is said to be in hospice care with less than six months to live and in constant need of oxygen due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was in a wheelchair during his last court appearance.
The shoes Martin stole were one of four pairs Garland wore during the shooting of "The Wizard of Oz" and are considered the “Holy Grail” of Hollywood memorabilia. One pair of shoes is kept in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, another—in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the third belongs to a private collector. US federal prosecutors estimate the current market value of these shoes to be approximately $3.5 million.
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