Terry Jon Martin had been out of federal prison for 10 years when the call came about stealing the ruby red slippers.
They were on display in the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, a joint whose security “leaked like a sieve,” Terry was told. It didn’t matter to Terry that the ruby slippers were the most famous shoes in movie history, worn by Judy Garland as Dorothy in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. Terry had never seen the movie. All he cared about was that the slippers were covered in real rubies, or so he was told by the “old Mob associate” who offered him the job. Given the size of the rubies, he said, they could be worth a fortune.
