Would-be tipsters reported them on display at the Smithsonian, which was true – “Yeah, we know that, that’s another pair,” Johnson said. One week, they were nailed to a wall in a roadside diner in Missouri, or resting at the bottom of a water-filled ore pit.
Tips flowed in over the years but they led either nowhere – or to reproductions. During the 40th Annual “Wizard of Oz” Festival, divers scoured the depths of the Tioga Mine Pit lake but came up empty-handed. Ten years after the theft, the museum teamed up with the Itasca County Sheriff’s Dive Team to investigate the theory that someone had thrown the slippers into a nearby lake. “We’re the ones that want to find them because they were entrusted to us,” Miner said in “The Slippers.” As the mystery deepened, museum staff became the target of rumors of an inside job, allegations they vehemently denied. Investigators had no evidence, aside from a single sequin that had fallen off one of the slippers. The theft was “the biggest thing that ever happened to our museum,” museum co-founder Jon Miner told CNN affiliate KQDS in 2015. The alarm did not sound to a central dispatch station and no fingerprints were left behind, police said.
The perpetrator smashed a glass case in the museum’s gallery and stole the slippers, which were insured for $1 million. PRNewsFoto/Judy Garland MuseumĪ thief broke in through the museum’s back door, according to the Grand Rapids Police Department. The slippers were stolen in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. “But most importantly, I was assured that the museum had security,” said Shaw. Shaw rejected the museum’s offer to store them in a vault each night because he didn’t want people handling the delicate shoes by moving them daily, he said in the 2016 documentary, “The Slippers.” Memorabilia collector Michael Shaw loaned the slippers to the Judy Garland Museum for Grand Rapids’ annual “Wizard of Oz” festival in 2005. They’re an enduring symbol of the power of belief,” Grand Rapids Police Chief Scott Johnson said. “They’re more than just a pair of shoes, the slippers. The long-lost slippers were shown to reporters Tuesday at the FBI’s Minneapolis headquarters in a news conference conducted in reverential tones, with repeated references to rainbows and the memorable quote “there’s no place like home.” It reflects culture, it holds our memories, it reflects our values.” “This type of cultural property is important to us as a society. “These types of offenses not only deprive the owner of their property, but all of us,” Myers said. “There’s a certain romance in these types of schemes, sometimes sophistication, but at the end of the day it’s a theft,” Myers said. This summer, the shoes were seized in an undercover operation in Minneapolis, the FBI said.
Finally, a tip last summer led law enforcement outside Minnesota, and the FBI got involved. The theft sparked years of rumors and dead-end leads. Law enforcement showed off the recovered shoes on Tuesday, WCCO