Photo: Judy Garland Museum
There’s no place like home.
A pair of the original ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz were finally recovered since they were first stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in August 2005.
The Grand Rapids, Minn. museum first reported them missing in August of 2005 when the glass case was smashed and the famous slippers were taken from its display case during a burglary.
“The biggest thing that ever happened to our museum was getting the slippers stolen,” museum co-founder Jon Miner told CNN affiliate KQDS in 2015. “We were literally crying.”
Later this afternoon, FBI agents and local law enforcement in Minneapolis will hold a news conference to announce that they have found one of the four known surviving pairs of the iconic slippers that Judy Garland wore in the 1939 classic film that had previously been missing.
While clearly the slippers did not reappear with a click of their heels, the details of how the famed shoes were recovered still remain a mystery as of now, prior to the news conference held later today.
Since they were first snatched in 2005, the slippers have taken law enforcement on quite the Yellow Brick journey to recover the iconic shoes. They offered an initial $250,000 reward for information and in 2015 an anonymous donor offered a $1 million reward for anyone who knew the location of the slippers and the name of thief. The search took investigators to the Tioga Mine Pit in Itasca County four times, a home in San Diego belonging to a man hiding a different pair. The shoes were insured for $1 million dollars and had serial numbers and Garland’s name written inside. In 2013, law enforcement handed the case over to private investigators to find the ruby slippers, which they finally did. Just like Dorothy made her way back to Kansas, the slippers returned home to Minnesota.
The other three remaining pairs of the ruby slippers are outside of the Land of 10,000 Lakes, including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Smithsonian, and a private collector.
Minneapolis FBI agent Jill Sanborn, North Dakota United States Attorney Christopher Myers, and Grand Rapids Police Chief Scott Johnson will host a press conference this afternoon at 1 p.m. CDT regarding the slipper recovery.
h/t MPR News
