The release estimated that the current market value of the pair of slippers is $3.5 million. At the time of the robbery, they were insured for $1 million.
Jeff Baenen/AP Photo
In a 2016 documentaryThe Slippers, CNN reported that Shaw had asked the museum not to put the slippers in a vault overnight to limit the amount they were handled. “But most importantly, I was assured that the museum had security,” Shaw said.
“The biggest thing that ever happened to our museum was getting the slippers stolen,” Jon Miner, a museum co-founder, told KQDS, a CNN affiliate, in 2015. “We were literally crying.”
Courtesy Everett Collection
After handling the case alone since 2005, the Grand Rapids Police Department requested FBI assistance in 2017, when they discovered a burgeoning scheme to defraud and extort the Markel Corporation — the organization that owns the slippers.
“When the slippers were snatched in the early morning burglary, the thieves not only took the slippers, they took a piece of history that will be forever connected to Grand Rapids and one of our city’s most famous children,” Grand Rapids Police Chief Scott Johnson said in the release. “We were confident this day would eventually come, and we are grateful to the FBI and all those who worked to bring this piece of cinematic treasure out of the shadows and into the light.”
He added, in a nod to the iconic film: “After all, ‘There’s no place like home.’ "
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Dorothy’s red slippers are not the only artifact from the classic film to have gone missing in recent years.
One of the blue gingham dresses Garland wore in the film wasmissing for over four decades before being discoveredat Catholic University in Washington D.C. in 2021.
Matt Ripa, a lecturer and operations coordinator for the drama department at the school, accidentally discovered the long-lost artifact — which was originally gifted to the school in the 1970s — while cleaning his office. The outfit later went missing just a year after that.
source: people.com
