Judy Garland Museum fundraises to get stolen ruby slippers back on display permanently

By Caroline Cummings

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    GRAND RAPIDS, Minnesota (WCCO) — It’s hardly the land of Oz. But there is a yellow brick road that takes visitors to the heart of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Iconic actress Judy Garland only lived there for a few years, but her childhood home has been transformed into a museum honoring her life and legacy. Movie memorabilia sits in display cases for tourists and superfans to admire: the original carriage from The Wizard of Oz, a test dress of Dorothy’s, a winkie sword from the witch’s castle.

But of all the priceless pieces in the museum’s carefully curated collection, nothing will ever top what was lost.

“It’s become an infamous thing for us,” said Janie Heitz, executive director of the Judy Garland Museum. “We will forever be known as a place where the ruby slippers were stolen, which comes with a lot of bad but can also come with some good because it put us on the map.”

The story drew international attention and has become local lore. In 2005, a thief broke into the museum — whose security, curator John Kelsch admits, was “lax”— and stole the famous footwear, leaving just one single sequin behind.

A man pleaded guilty to the crime and told investigators an old mob associate led him to believe they were made of actual rubies. Another faces charges.

The FBI recovered the shoes in 2018 and returned them earlier this year to their rightful owner, California collector Michael Shaw who had loaned them to the museum at the time of the theft.

At the time they were stolen, the shoes were insured for $1 million. Now they will go on the auction block this December for an estimated valuation of $3.5 million or more.

In The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man wanted a heart. The Scarecrow was in search of a brain. The Lion sought courage.

And the Judy Garland Museum is looking to get the ruby slippers back on exhibit permanently. It’s fundraising to make a bid for the shoes with the help of $100,000 from a share of the state’s “Legacy Amendment” funds — sales tax revenues dedicated to preserving the state’s water, land and cultural heritage. The Minnesota Legislature signed off on the money this year.

“Like in the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds her way back home. So we think it’s a very happy ending to a long drawn-out story,” Heitz said of the effort.

The theft and investigation

John Kelsch, museum curator and director at the time of the theft, remembers it vividly. He received a call from a coworker at the front desk who delivered the news.

“All Cathy said was, ‘They’re gone’. And I knew exactly what she meant,” he told WCCO.

Security was lax, he explained, because nobody would ever contemplate that such a high-profile theft would happen in their quaint community of around 11,000 people.

In his telling, the alarm system was disarmed at the emergency exit doors because too many kids on field trips were inadvertently setting it off, dispatching the police repeatedly for no emergency. Kelsch explained he thought it would be reset at night, but “wrong assumption,” he said.

So in 2005 when the thief broke in, sirens blared, but no police were notified. The gallery where the famous footwear were on display was also left open because inside it was getting warm, and staff worried about the heat damaging the artifacts.

There the shoes stood ripe for the taking under a plexiglass case.

“It was an unbelievable set of circumstances that came together that summer. It’s almost like you couldn’t plan it better,” he said.

Brian Mattson, an investigator with Grand Rapids Police who inherited the case several years after the theft, was part of the team of federal and local police that got them back. He said his department chased down many false leads after an announcement that there would be a sizable reward for any new information.

But ultimately a man approached the department saying he knew of the whereabouts of the slippers, Mattson explained, and provided a photo which looked to be authentic. That was the tip that set everything thereafter in motion. The FBI has said in 2017 a person came forward to the insurers of the slippers with information about how to retrieve them.

The shoes were recovered during an undercover operation in Minneapolis the next year.

Mattson said it’s one of the most memorable cases he’s been a part of during his law enforcement career.

“During this whole investigation, I came to understand what the slippers stood for. And what they meant to people, not just here in Grand Rapids, not Minnesota, but the whole world,” he said.

He supports the museum’s effort to buy them back.

“I think this is their true home. Like this is where everything started surrounding them. So I mean, how iconic would it be to have them back here at home? I think if Judy could look down, she’d smile if she saw them here.”

The fundraising campaign The ruby slippers owned by Michael Shaw were one of four pairs Judy Garland wore on screen. One of them is on display at the Smithsonian American History Museum in Washington, D.C., but this pair were dubbed the “traveling shoes” because Shaw would take them to different exhibitions.

Before they go on the auction block in December, Heritage Auctions will bring the shoes to Dallas, London, Tokyo and New York so they can “once again dazzle and delight crowds around the world.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the shoes were appraised for $3.5 million at the time a grand jury indicted Terry Martin last year on one count of theft of a major artwork.

Heitz, the museum’s executive director, said because the story of the theft has drawn such attention, curators opened a new exhibit and are offering guided tours dedicated to it.

She won’t disclose how much the museum has raised so far because it’s a public auction. But she said they are accepting donations both large and small and got that $100,000 boost from state lawmakers this session to get the campaign off the ground.

On the museum’s website, a banner reads: “There’s no place like home. Donate to keep the ruby slippers where they belong.”

“There’s a pair in Washington, a pair at the new Academy Museum [of Motion Pictures], but let’s have a pair in the Midwest where the story began,” Kelsch said.

Until then, curators and Judy Garland fans are clicking their heels three times, hoping that dream comes true.

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