WEBVTT 00:02.300 --> 00:04.500 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% GEOFF BENNETT: If you have ever wanted to own a piece of Hollywood history, now's your chance. 00:04.500 --> 00:08.933 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% A pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers are up for auction. And just like Dorothy, 00:08.933 --> 00:13.400 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% this pair of shoes has been on its own long and very strange journey. 00:13.400 --> 00:18.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Special correspondent Megan Thompson explains for our arts and culture series, Canvas. 00:20.200 --> 00:22.933 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% JUDY GARLAND, Actress: Too late. There they are and there they will stay. 00:22.933 --> 00:27.933 align:left position:10% line:71% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Dorothy's ruby slippers, some of the most iconic movie memorabilia of all time, 00:29.266 --> 00:32.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% worn by actor Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz." 00:32.466 --> 00:37.466 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% JOHN KELSCH, Curator, Judy Garland Museum: It's such a story of promise and hope. Frank Sinatra 00:39.433 --> 00:42.866 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% said, we will all be forgotten, all of us, but not Judy. And I think he was right on. 00:44.366 --> 00:47.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: John Kelsch has made preserving Garland's legacy 00:47.033 --> 00:51.466 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% his life's work as the curator of the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, 00:51.466 --> 00:55.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Minnesota, a small city three hours north of Minneapolis. 00:55.533 --> 00:58.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JOHN KELSCH: Judy Garland's parents owned this House for seven years. 00:58.933 --> 01:02.133 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% MEGAN THOMPSON: Born Frances Ethel Gumm in 1922, 01:02.133 --> 01:06.833 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% Garland lived here until she was 4 and got her start performing at a local theater. 01:06.833 --> 01:11.833 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% More than 10,000 fans make the trek each year to visit her childhood home and the museum. 01:13.600 --> 01:16.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JOHN KELSCH: The slippers were exhibited on top of this pedestal. 01:16.300 --> 01:19.200 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% MEGAN THOMPSON: Over the years, the museum displayed a pair of the famous 01:19.200 --> 01:24.200 align:left position:10% line:71% size:80% ruby slippers loaned from a Hollywood memorabilia collector named Michael Shaw. In August 2005, 01:26.133 --> 01:29.700 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% the slippers were at the museum for the fourth time when everything was shattered. 01:29.700 --> 01:32.100 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% JOHN KELSCH: So he used a handheld sledgehammer. 01:32.100 --> 01:36.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: A thief in the night smashed the glass of a side door and walked right in. 01:36.666 --> 01:41.666 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% JOHN KELSCH: Creeped along this wall like that. We're a small-town museum. We had security, but 01:43.866 --> 01:47.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% there were many lapses. It was almost a perfect storm and you might say a comedy of errors. 01:48.900 --> 01:51.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: The door's alarm had been disabled because school 01:51.133 --> 01:56.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% children kept tripping it. There were no cameras recording, no motion detectors in the gallery. 01:57.933 --> 02:00.566 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% When Kelsch, museum director at the time, arrived the next morning: 02:00.566 --> 02:02.333 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% JOHN KELSCH: And I said, well, there's a sequin. 02:02.333 --> 02:05.466 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% MEGAN THOMPSON: All that was left was a single sequin on the floor. 02:05.466 --> 02:08.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% JOHN KELSCH: You just feel violated and trust is gone. 02:08.666 --> 02:13.666 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% And our credibility for borrowing other artifacts was destroyed. 02:15.566 --> 02:17.566 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% PAM DOWELL, Freelance Writer: When you think of "The Wizard of Oz" and the 02:17.566 --> 02:20.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% magic of "The Wizard of Oz," they're going into this far-off fantasy land and they're 02:20.733 --> 02:25.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% meeting these weird people. That's what these shoes did in real life in the criminal caper. 02:27.233 --> 02:29.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Pam Dowell is a freelance writer in Grand 02:29.033 --> 02:31.733 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% Rapids who covered the crime for the local papers. 02:31.733 --> 02:34.166 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% PAM DOWELL: I was making phone calls to everybody. 02:34.166 --> 02:38.833 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% MEGAN THOMPSON: As the years went by and the case went cold, rumors swirled. Was it local kids, 02:40.500 --> 02:43.933 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% an unscrupulous fan, the shoe's owner looking for an insurance payout? 02:43.933 --> 02:48.066 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% PAM DOWELL: Inside job because it just seemed like there were too many things 02:48.066 --> 02:53.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% that went awry that night. So there were lots of different speculations. 02:54.733 --> 02:56.666 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% BRIAN MANSON, Grand Rapids Police Department: Ruby slippers. 02:56.666 --> 02:58.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Brian Manson (ph) is an investigator with the Grand Rapids 02:58.266 --> 03:00.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Police Department, who chased several ruby slipper leads. 03:00.566 --> 03:02.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% BRIAN MANSON: And, all of a sudden, he's like, you're not going to believe it. 03:02.433 --> 03:04.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Once staking out a house in the woods, 03:04.433 --> 03:08.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% where he found this pair of high heels covered in glitter. 03:08.233 --> 03:11.333 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% BRIAN MANSON: I see it says "Made in China." So I was kind of mad. 03:11.333 --> 03:15.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: But another lead that Manson worked ended up cracking the case. 03:15.400 --> 03:20.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% In 2018, 13 years after the heist, the shoes were recovered during an FBI sting operation 03:22.366 --> 03:26.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% in Minneapolis. But the first indictment wouldn't come for five more years. So who 03:28.966 --> 03:32.600 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% were the alleged criminal masterminds that eluded the law for almost two decades? Two 03:34.366 --> 03:37.400 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% buddies named Terry and Jerry, career criminals who decided to team up for 03:37.400 --> 03:41.700 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% one last score, both in ill health by the time they showed up to court. 03:41.700 --> 03:45.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% PAM DOWELL: Got now these two older guys, kind of crusty, 03:45.433 --> 03:50.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% little buggers. It doesn't it doesn't fit the story of what we have speculated on. 03:53.033 --> 03:55.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Terry Martin, who lives in Grand Rapids, 03:55.433 --> 03:59.733 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% claimed in court he mistakenly thought the shoes were made of real rubies. 03:59.733 --> 04:04.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% PAM DOWELL: I believe that they got something that was too hot to move. And they were very 04:06.400 --> 04:10.700 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% specific. They were identifiable. So then they had to sit on them. 04:10.700 --> 04:12.966 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% MEGAN THOMPSON: And so the slippers sat, 04:12.966 --> 04:17.400 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% allegedly in Jerry Saliterman's backyard near Minneapolis, buried for years in a plastic box. 04:19.400 --> 04:21.233 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% RYAN LINTELMAN, Smithsonian Institution: I think that clearly the ruby slippers 04:21.233 --> 04:25.333 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% are among the most iconic and valuable piece of movie memorabilia. 04:25.333 --> 04:28.500 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Ryan Lintelman is the curator of the Entertainment Collection at 04:28.500 --> 04:33.500 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% the National Museum of American History, where the FBI brought the shoes for authentication. 04:35.500 --> 04:38.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Lintelman's team compared them to another pair of ruby slippers the museum owns. 04:38.433 --> 04:42.866 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% RYAN LINTELMAN: And the real smoking gun was a missing stone from one of the bows that had 04:42.866 --> 04:47.600 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% been replaced during production with a clear stone that was painted red, a detail that had never been 04:47.600 --> 04:52.433 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% published about the ruby slippers before. Not even the most skilled forger would know to do that. 04:52.433 --> 04:57.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Lintelman says the Smithsonian slippers, one of four pairs known to exist, 04:57.100 --> 05:02.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% are one of its most popular items, seen by more than 100 million people over the years. 05:04.200 --> 05:07.800 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% RYAN LINTELMAN: I think people bring a lot of personal memories and love of Hollywood film. 05:08.966 --> 05:10.766 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% ACTRESS: Follow the yellow brick road. 05:10.766 --> 05:13.266 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% RYAN LINTELMAN: But I think they also bring this sort of interest in 05:13.266 --> 05:16.500 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Dorothy's journey and the way that that's played out in their lives. 05:16.500 --> 05:20.133 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: In March, the stolen pair were reunited with their owner, 05:20.133 --> 05:24.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Michael Shaw, who decided to put them up for auction. 05:24.133 --> 05:26.300 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% JANIE HEITZ, Executive Director, Judy Garland Museum: This is Judy. 05:26.300 --> 05:29.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Janie Heitz, the current executive director of the Judy Garland Museum, 05:29.700 --> 05:34.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% is raising money to make a bid, saying for the ruby slippers, there's no place like home. 05:36.833 --> 05:40.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JANIE HEITZ: Having a pair of ruby slippers in her hometown, where she was happy as a child, 05:42.566 --> 05:45.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% would be a good Hollywood happy ending to this saga of the ruby slippers. 05:45.300 --> 05:50.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: The slippers are estimated to be worth more than $3 million, and online bidding, 05:51.800 --> 05:54.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% which started on November 1, is already nearing $1 million. 05:54.500 --> 05:58.166 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JANIE HEITZ: It's definitely an uphill battle, but dreams really do come true. 05:58.166 --> 06:02.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: The museum is accepting donations in person and on its Web site, 06:02.100 --> 06:07.100 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% and Heitz is approaching big-dollar donors across the country. The state of Minnesota 06:09.166 --> 06:12.233 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% has even pledged $100,000, with Governor Tim Walz promising 24/7 "Oceans 11"-proof security. 06:15.733 --> 06:20.733 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% ACTRESS: Tap your heels together three times. 06:22.933 --> 06:25.800 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% JOHN KELSCH: They have a power that is mythical. Even if we aren't successful at the auction, 06:29.233 --> 06:33.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% perhaps someone will donate them someday. We could be surprised. 06:33.433 --> 06:38.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% MEGAN THOMPSON: Bidding for the ruby slippers will end at a live auction in Dallas on December 7. 06:40.133 --> 06:44.433 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Megan Thompson in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.