By james art Tery John Martin had been out of federal prison for 10 years when the call came in about the theft of the ruby red slippers.
They were on display at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, a facility whose security was “leak 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 film. The Wizard of Oz. Terry had never seen the movie. All he cared about was that the slippers were covered real rubies, or so the “old mob associate” who offered him the job told him. Given the size of the rubies, he said, they could be worth a fortune.