The magical wizard of Oz slippers. Photo: US Today.
US prosecutors have charged a man with stealing the famous red slippers worn by Judy Garland’s character Dorothy in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
The valuable shoes were found in an FBI operation in 2018 after being taken from a museum in August 2005, but no arrests were made at the time.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors charged Minnesota man Terry Martin, aged 76, with theft of a major artwork.
The recovered slippers are one of four pairs in existence.
BBC reports that, the shoes were taken from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, by a thief who had smashed through a window in the building’s back door to get inside. No fingerprints were left behind and no alarm went off.
Writing by Chinasa Ossai