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Man likely to avoid prison after theft of ‘Wizard of Oz’ slippers
On Monday, Terry Jon Martin will be sentenced for the theft of the iconic cinematic collectibles back in 2005.
GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. — A dying thief who confessed to stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz” because he wanted to pull off “one last score” is expected to stay out of prison after he’s sentenced Monday.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. He gave into temptation after an old mob associate told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value, his attorney revealed in a memo to the federal court ahead of his sentencing in Duluth.
The FBI recovered the shoes in 2018 when someone else tried to claim a reward. Martin wasn’t charged with stealing them until last year.
He pleaded guilty in October to theft of a major artwork, admitting to using a hammer to smash the glass of the museum door and display case to take the slippers. But his motivation remained mostly a mystery until defense attorney Dane DeKrey revealed it this month.
Martin, who lives near Grand Rapids, said at the October hearing that he hoped to remove what he thought were real rubies from the shoes and sell them. But a person who deals in stolen goods, known as a fence, informed him the rubies were glass, Martin said. So he got rid of the slippers.
DeKrey wrote in his memo that Martin’s unidentified former mob associate persuaded him to steal the slippers as “one last score,” even though Martin had seemed to have “finally put his demons to rest” after finishing his last prison term nearly 10 years ago.
“At first, Terry declined the invitation to participate in the heist. But old habits die hard, and the thought of a ‘final score’ kept him up at night,” DeKrey wrote. “After much contemplation, Terry had a criminal relapse and decided to participate in the theft.”
Both sides are recommending that Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz sentence Martin to time served because he is housebound in hospice care and is expected to die within six months. He requires constant oxygen therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and was in a wheelchair when he pleaded guilty.
Federal sentencing guidelines would normally recommend a sentence of about 4 1/2 years to 6 years, though someone with Martin’s criminal history could get an even longer term. But his health “is simply too fragile,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. Another prosecution filing said both sides agreed he should be ordered to pay $23,500 in restitution to the museum, even though he apparently does not have the money.
According to DeKrey, Martin had no idea about the cultural significance of the ruby slippers and had never seen “The Wizard of Oz.” Instead, DeKrey said, the “old Terry” with a lifelong history involving burglary and receiving stolen property beat out the “new Terry” who had become “a contributing member of society” after his 1996 release from prison.
After the fence told Martin the rubies were fake, DeKrey wrote, he gave the slippers to his old mob associate and told him he never wanted to see them again. The attorney said Martin never heard from the man again. Martin has refused to identify anyone else who was involved in the theft, and nobody else has ever been charged in the case.
The FBI never disclosed exactly how it tracked down the slippers. The bureau said a man approached the insurer in 2017 and claimed he could help recover them but demanded more than the $200,000 reward being offered. The slippers were recovered during an FBI sting in Minneapolis the next year.
Federal prosecutors have put the slippers’ market value at about $3.5 million.
In the classic 1939 musical, Garland’s character, Dorothy, had to click the heels of her ruby slippers three times and repeat, “There’s no place like home,” to return to Kansas from Oz. She wore several pairs during filming, but only four authentic pairs are known to remain.
Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw had loaned one pair to the museum when Martin stole them. The other three are held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Museum of American History and a private collector.
Garland was born Frances Gumm in 1922. She lived in Grand Rapids, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Minneapolis, until she was 4, when her family moved to Los Angeles. She died in 1969.
The Judy Garland Museum, located in the house where she lived, says it has the world’s largest collection of Garland and Wizard of Oz memorabilia.
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MINNEAPOLIS — Editor’s Note: This video originally aired Sept. 25, 2024.
Halloween is approaching and it’s time to get scary at The Market at Malcolm Yards.
The Twin Cities Paranormal Society will read ghost stories on Sunday to get Minneapolis residents in the mood for spooky season. Guests are welcome to bring food and drinks from The Market into the event.
Thomas Troupe, the co-leader of the Twin Cities Paranormal Society, visited KARE 11 News at Noon to share more about the event.
Tickets are $15 and will grant listeners a 1.5-hour ghost story experience. There are two sessions Sunday night starting at 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Click here to purchase tickets.
Elections officials across the state are wrapping up mandatory testing of ballot tabulator machines.
BLAINE, Minn. — The third floor of this town’s city hall is off limits to the public, except when it comes to showing constituents the vote counting equipment is working.
Blaine City Clerk Cathy Sorensen Thursday hosted the public accuracy test for her city’s vote-counting machinery and invited news cameras to come along for the ride.
“The public accuracy test is a great way for anyone from the public to come in and just see for themselves that the machines are working how they are supposed to work,” Sorensen told KARE.
It’s more than just a show-and-tell event. The public accuracy test is part of state law. Every vote tabulating machine in the state has to be tested before each election, and those tests must be open to the public.
Sorensen’s staff had already tested all 32 of their vote scanners before Thursday but re-tested three of them to show the media how the process works. The exercise serves the dual purpose of ensuring accuracy and building public confidence in the integrity of the election system.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who accompanied Sorensen for the accuracy test, said any machine that fails the exam can’t be used on Election Day.
“They try to trick the elections equipment, to make sure it’s up to snuff for Election Day,” Simon explained.
“They’ll do things like put stray marks on it, they’ll crease it or fold it, they’ll overvote or undervote, or do things they’re not supposed to do, all to try to trick the machine to see if it catches it.”
One of the ballots rejected by a tabulator in Blaine’s test had part of its unique location code scribbled over with ink. That code is designed to ensure the ballot came from the correct precinct.
“It’s a way to make sure that somebody doesn’t bring in a ballot, on their own on Election Day from home,” Sorensen explained.
“So, those ballots are printed and those sequence marks are unique for that precinct. It would be very difficult for somebody to know that code. The sample ballots you can print don’t have real codes on them.”
Under normal circumstances, the media can’t get anywhere close to the third floor where the tabulator machines are stored. It takes a special badge to get on the floor, and there’s a series of locks that can’t be opened with a master key.
It’s even tougher to access the secret location where absentee ballots are stored waiting to be counted.
“Even getting into the actual election cage there’s an old school padlock that only election officials have, and again it’s just one more layer to make sure we have that chain of custody and that confidence no one was able to access without one of us,” Sorensen said.
The machines themselves are also protected from online tampering.
“We have a rule in Minnesota; no connection to the Internet during voting hours, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m,” Simon said.
“We have these public accuracy tests on the front end, and then remember on the back end we have good old-fashioned paper. We’re a paper ballot state. We don’t touch finger on a screen, we actually vote the old-fashioned way.”
Simon said those ballots are stored for two years and can be used to settle any challenges to the machine count.
“Could be a dry September to dry October, back to back,” Brennan Dettmann, a meteorologist at NWS Twin Cities, said.
CHANHASSEN, Minn. — Rain has been more than difficult to come by recently – it’s been almost nonexistent.
The National Weather Service Twin Cities reports that it has measured barely a trace of precipitation, marking another stretch of dry weather.
“Could be a dry September to dry October, back to back,” Brennan Dettmann, a meteorologist at NWS Twin Cities, said.
“There’s been periods of normalcy, but certainly has been a lot of record-setting conditions that we’ve seen this past year,” he continued.
This past year has seen many records added or broken. December to February was the warmest winter on record. March to May was the 10th warmest spring.
Last month was both the warmest and driest September ever in Minnesota.
Those trends also include a shift from the heavy rains we saw over the summer to dry conditions right now.
“We’re not alone in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but certainly, yeah, it has been a quick uptick from what it’s been from the spring and early part of the summer,” he said.
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows 97% of Minnesota under abnormally dry conditions.
That’s why NWS Twin Cities issued a red flag warning for nearly all of Minnesota Thursday.
“With the drought, you know, there hasn’t been any precipitation in a while, things are just generally dry,” Dettmann said. “So you get something to spark, it can very quickly spread with the aid of those gusty winds pushing in, you know, any fires that form. So that’s the main reason for having the red flag warning.”
If you’re looking for relief, don’t count on it coming anytime soon.
“Expecting it to stay dry into the end of October,” Dettmann said.
With little precipitation coming soon, expect to see these reminders of fire danger continue – whether there’s a warning or not.
“You’ll likely see that continue into the end of October and November, as long as there’s no major precipitation that falls during that time frame,” Dettmann said.
