The Dumbest Mobster Ever Tried To Steal Ruby Slippers

Summary

Ridiculous History: The Dumbest Mobster Ever Tried To Steal Ruby Slippers

Podcast: Ridiculous History
Hosts: Ben Bowlin & Noel Brown
Episode Date: October 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown take listeners down the winding, often comical path of the most coveted shoes in movie history—the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. This episode is a wild mix of Hollywood lore, mishandled movie memorabilia, and an absurd true crime caper involving a not-so-brilliant retired mobster. From the slippers' creation to their status as pop culture icons, and their eventual theft and recovery, the story shows just how weird history—and value—can be.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the Ruby Slippers

• Literary and cinematic roots: The original book gave Dorothy silver slippers, but when MGM adapted The Wizard of Oz for the screen, costumer Gilbert Adrian turned them ruby to maximize Technicolor’s impact (01:07–12:26).
  • "In the book, the slippers are silver. But that wouldn't have translated to the silver screen as well as red for some reason." – Noel Brown (01:07)
• Slipper construction details:
  • Shoes were white silk pumps, dyed red, covered in sequined organza overlays (13:34).
  • Each shoe featured 2,300 sequins made from gelatin, making restoration a painstaking process.
  • Six to ten pairs were created for different shots; most are now lost or separated (15:05).

2. Early Attitudes Toward Movie Memorabilia

• Studios historically lacked foresight; props and costumes, even iconic ones, languished in storage (06:38, 17:19).
• Archiving practices were haphazard, with props “just thrown kind of haphazardly into warehouses” (23:40).

3. The Memorabilia Savior: Kent Warner’s Story (15:50–27:53)

• Kent Warner, an MGM employee, essentially rescued key props during a mass liquidation in the late 1960s.
  • Discovered three pairs of ruby slippers amid 500,000 costumes; he kept the best pair, sold another, and provided one for a historic auction (28:13–29:24).
  • “He was a venerable Robin Hood of memorabilia…” – Noel Brown (27:53)

4. Dispersal and Provenance of the Ruby Slippers

• Auction Pair: Sold for $15,000 in 1970 (≈$125,000 today), now displayed at the Smithsonian (30:02).
• Witch’s Shoes: Close-up pair used in the film, sold for $12,000 in 1981, later acquired for the Academy Museum, with names like Leo DiCaprio and Steven Spielberg linked as benefactors (31:05–33:22).
• Contest Pair: Won by a woman in a 1939 contest, later sold for $666,000 in 2000; their whereabouts are private (33:47–35:07).

5. The 2005 Theft: The ‘Dumbest Mobster’

• In 2005, a pair of slippers was smashed-and-grabbed from the Judy Garland Museum by retired mobster Terry John Martin, believing them to be encrusted with real rubies (09:33–10:05, 38:53–41:27).
• He was sorely disappointed to learn they were only sequins and glass—“I'm sorry, bud, these are sequins and glass” (10:05).
• The shoes went missing for 13 years; the FBI and an anonymous donor ($1 million reward) led a manhunt, treating it as a high-profile crime (40:07).
• Martin was ultimately caught after trying to ransom the slippers for an oddly specific amount; he pled guilty and was spared jail time due to poor health (41:32–46:47).
  • “Martin was a former mobster...more of a smash and grab type dude, you know, glorified purse snatcher.” – Noel Brown (42:32)

6. The Surge in Value and Legacy

• When the stolen slippers were auctioned in 2024, they fetched a stunning $32.5 million, making them the most valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever (47:27).
  • “An unknown buyer spent 32.5 million bucks on these, making them the most valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever to be sold at auction.” – Noel Brown (47:27)
• Ruby slippers made with real rubies were valued at only $3 million—proving that historical aura often trumps material worth (48:11).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On movie prop preservation:
  • “He looks inside the lining of the coat and someone has stitched the name Bogart. It turns out this is the overcoat that Bogart is wearing in Casablanca.” – Ben Bowlin (24:35)
• On the mobster heist:
  • “He thought the shoes were encrusted and bedazzled with real rubies. And he was convinced that he had made...a huge win. Until he went to an actual jeweler...” – Ben Bowlin (10:05)
• On the heist’s lack of sophistication:
  • “Wouldn't it have been cool, though, if he had, like, dropped through the ceiling Mission Impossible-style...Nah, this guy was not thinking that.” – Noel Brown (39:32)
• On value and memorabilia:
  • “This is so illustrative of how arbitrary value can be for memorabilia...they were only worth about $3 million. So much less than the fake ones. This is so nuts.” – Ben Bowlin (48:11)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Segment | |--|--| | 01:07–12:26 | Book vs. film slippers, Technicolor choice, creation details | | 15:50–27:53 | Kent Warner and forgotten studio treasures | | 30:02 | Smithsonian acquisition | | 31:05–33:22 | “Witch’s shoes,” Academy acquisition | | 33:47–35:07 | Contest pair; memorabilia market explodes | | 38:53–41:27 | The 2005 heist: planning, theft, and aftermath | | 41:32–46:47 | FBI sting, mobster caught, legal and health outcomes | | 47:27 | Record-breaking auction and cultural value | | 48:11 | The arbitrary, emotional value of movie artifacts |

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Fun & Ridiculous Facts

• Many Hollywood films used asbestos as artificial snow (06:59).
• The slippers on display at the Smithsonian are actually a mismatched pair (30:26).
• A pair of real ruby-encrusted slippers (50th anniversary, 1989) are worth a fraction of their original prop counterparts (48:11).
• The thief had never even seen The Wizard of Oz (44:33).

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Final Thoughts

The saga of the ruby slippers is a deeply American comedy of errors—studios undervaluing their history, fans idolizing artifacts, and a not-so-brilliant mobster falling for a glittery illusion. This episode blends humor, nostalgia, and insight into how value is constructed and how history can be so utterly, wonderfully ridiculous.

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For more absurd tales from the annals of history, check out Ridiculous History wherever you get your podcasts!

Transcript

[Ben Bolan]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always so much for tuning in. Shout out to Las Vegas's the Sphere. Shout out to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.

[Noel Brown]

Max, there's no place like home. There's no place like home. Williams.

[Ben Bolan]

There we go. Love it. That's Mr. Noel Brown returned from some adventures. They call me Ben Bolan in this part of the world due to some ongoing litigation. Look, no, Once upon a time, as our pal Jordan told us, the wizard of Oz was a big deal. Did you ever read the old books by Bob?

[Noel Brown]

It was a book. Yeah, no, I did. I am aware of the book and apparently in the book the slippers are silver. But that wouldn't have translated to the silver screen as well as red for some reason. In the infinite wisdom of the pictures. The golden age of Hollywood. Yeah. No, I do love the story. The Frank L. Baum series of books which also, I believe encompass a lot of the lore that went into the utterly terrifying children's film Return to Oz. Yes, I'm glad that Queen Mombi. And there's some ruby slippers in that one too, worn by the gnome king.

[Ben Bolan]

And the most unfriendly rollerbladers in all history.

[Noel Brown]

Nightmare stuff, my friend.

[Ben Bolan]

Yes. Yeah, that's one of those things that will encourage the Mandela effect because you're wondering whether or not that actually happened or if you just had a traumatic.

[Noel Brown]

Childhood fever in the film Young Firuza Bulk, who you may remember from the craft. I'm still terrified of other things. Yeah, for sure. She's great in the craft and she's also an American History X when she was a kid and she's in this film and her character has, I believe, been committed to a psychiatric institute and is given like shock treatment and that's what leads her to re hallucinate Oz kind of. And it's boy, is it ever dark.

[Ben Bolan]

And I wonder what Frank would think about that. What the author Baum would think.

[Noel Brown]

Anyway, here's a Disney picture by the way, right?

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, A lot of stuff got co signed by Disney.

[Noel Brown]

This was a golden era for mega, mega dark liveaction Disney 100%. This is the, I want to say early 90s people were going through stuff.

[Ben Bolan]

You know, Alice in Chains was big. It was a whole thing.

[Noel Brown]

This is an Iheart podcast.

[Ben Bolan]

This episode of Ridiculous History is brought to you in part by American Public University.

[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bolan]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bolan]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Kal Penn]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Noel Brown]

Hey, what's up?

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[Ben Bolan]

Here'S our story for today, courtesy of our phenomenal research associate, friend of the show. Jordan Runto. In the. In the story wizard of Oz, the film adaptation, our protagonist Dorothy Gale Tornado jokes, it's true, she is gifted a pair of magic ruby slippers. And these are actual artifacts because the MGM studio, their prop department did of course have to make actual ruby slippers. These have become one of the most coveted baubles in movie history.

[Noel Brown]

Pieces of movie memorabilia. And we're gonna get to some great info. Jordan found about how, like, at the time, movie memorabilia was not a thing. The studios didn't know what they had. I guess they just didn't have a long view of it all and kind of popped up as a cottage industry that then of course became incredibly lucrative.

[Ben Bolan]

They were still using asbestos as snow, by the way.

[Noel Brown]

Exactly. Oh, totally. Yeah, there's a lot of. That's maybe another episode because there's a lot of crazy behind the scenes stuff involving the production of the wizard of Oz. Ben, I imagine since you mentioned the Sphere in Las Vegas, you're aware of this bizarre sort of event experience, I guess, where they've reimagined the wizard of Oz film through enhancements using AI and machine learning in order to widen the frame of this classic golden age Hollywood film to encompass the entire 360 degrees of the Vegas sphere. There's also live action elements where the flying monkeys swoop in on like, you know, like, what do you call it? Wires and, you know, hurricane wind effects and all that very 4D cinema at its arguably, I don't know, kind of most gross. It's not my thing. Maybe. If it's for you, by all means, hope you enjoy yourself. But general, you little odd. Little odd.

[Ben Bolan]

That's a. That's a general, you ridiculous historians. This fear has fascinated all three of us, and hopefully you as well, since its construction. Check out our pals. I was hanging with Jack and Miles talking about this earlier. I can't remember when, but it is, you know, the best way to do it, since we want to save some time here is to go to the New York times article from September 1, 2025 by Alyssa Wilkinson. And I love the title here, Noel. It is film criticism. And the headline reads, is the wizard of Oz at Sphere the future of cinema or the end of it?

[Noel Brown]

That is the question. I mean, you know, it's sort of part and parcel of the kinds of conversations that folks have around, let's say, George L. Lucas reimagining his previous films and making the original versions no longer able to be seen or acquired. And then the question then becomes like, Is there any end to this kind of revisionist history of, like, classic cinema? And I would argue this is maybe not the end. I don't want to be dire about it, but it just kind of rubs me the wrong way. So we are talking more specifically about the original creation of this incredible piece of Hollywood history. And some of the props and the screen used pieces that kind of developed a life of their own in terms of, like, Hollywood lore. And there's a really, really cool story surrounding these ruby slippers.

[Ben Bolan]

Yes. In 2005. So we're. We're. Because we love Jordan, we're. We're pushing our typical historical timeline a bit. In 2005, the actual slippers, the props, vanished in the wee hours of the evening. They were stolen, we'll learn. By a retired mobster who was desperate. Max, give me some heist music. He was desperate to make one last score because.

[Noel Brown]

One last score, he thought.

[Ben Bolan]

Last job. Yeah. He thought the shoes were encrusted and bedazzled with real rubies. And he was convinced that he had made the skin. Huge win. Until he went to an actual jeweler who says, I'm sorry, bud, these are sequins and glass. So he sat on these stolen slippers for over 10 years, and he had no idea that one day these legendary shoes would sell for US$32.5 million.

[Noel Brown]

Much like MGM itself, though, with the gift of hindsight, I suppose, had no idea this was gonna be such a hot item. So fans of the novels by Frank L. Baum, specifically the original 1900 book, the wonderful wizard of Oz, know that Dorothy Gale's famous kicks were originally going to be silver slippers. That's what they were in the book. Has a nice ring to it, the silver slippers. But MGM brass did not think that they would pop well enough on screen. This was going to be, obviously, a very, very important early use of Technicolor, going from black and white to from when Dorothy lands in the wonderful world of Oz, opening that door.

[Ben Bolan]

Silver is a gray thing.

[Noel Brown]

Silver's a great thing.

[Ben Bolan]

We're not really flexing. And the whole silver slippers, yellow brick road thing is about the gold standard as a metaphor.

[Noel Brown]

Well, yeah, for sure. And I don't know, man, I still, to this day, I'm so baffled by how well it works when you play Dark side of the Moon along with the wizard of Oz. There's no way they could have done it as on purpose as it seems. But boy, oh, boy, is that a fun thing to do. So just start the record I think after the third roar of the MGM lion. The slippers were designed by legendary costumer Gilbert Adrian, who was the chief costume designer over there at mgm. Originally, they were made in what was referred to as the Arabian motif, with these curling toes and high heels, elaborate jewel encrustation. They were using a costume test, but ultimately discarded. I don't know at the time if I'm giving them too much credit by saying they maybe realized it was problematic, but it certainly.

[Ben Bolan]

Here. Jordan, if you're listening, I will. I will take exception on this. I'll push back, because the racist reasoning for maybe not having them was that was probably that Louis B. Meyer who shows up in stuff they don't want, you know, in a few episodes. He probably thought it was too exotic for the time because it's a wholesome Midwest fantasy story.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah.

[Ben Bolan]

At least the way.

[Noel Brown]

Possibly further reasons of xenophobia that maybe led to them not being used.

[Ben Bolan]

At least the way they're framing it, it's supposed to be a wholesome Midwestern fantasy.

[Noel Brown]

So the second design after that one was nixed, was a bit closer to what we now know as the famous iconic ruby slippers. However, they had one modification. The red beads were initially deemed to be too heavy, and they were ultimately replaced by 2,300 sequins per shoe made of a gelatin material, which has since caused an absolute nightmare for folks who are trying to maintain and preserve these items.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, we'll get into some of the restoration, but essentially the. The boffins who have to clean these shoes have to do each sequin one by one with a very small piece of cotton dipped in very cold water. It's weird because the shoes themselves are not super duper ornate nor elaborate. They're these white silk pumps made by a place called the Inns Shoe Company. And then they get dyed red, and then they put these burgundy sequined organza overlays around it. And. Because Technicolor. I still think we all remember that moment where you watch the first part of wizard of Oz, the adaptation, and it's in black and white, and then all of a sudden we burst out into Oz, and it's in Technicolor.

[Noel Brown]

It's incredible.

[Ben Bolan]

It's amazing. But Technicolor technology was technically not Tekken because the shoes would have looked orange on screen. So the Costum costume team had to correct for that. If you. If you look at the shoes in real life, you can see them at Smithsonian over there in dc. We're huge fans of that. Check out their podcast side door, you'll see that the shoes are not as impressive IRL as they are in the film. Because they're darker.

[Noel Brown]

They're darker. And obviously the look of them in the film had a lot to do with really, really powerful lights and just again, the way that color saturated on that Technicolor. So according to folks who worked on the film, somewhere between six and 10 pairs of size five ruby slippers were made for the production. Not uncommon to have, you know, duplicates for various reasons. Some of these were meant to be used for close ups. Other that were a little, maybe less bespoke were meant to be used in wide shots when she was walking and dancing. Perhaps they were not as ornately decorated so they couldn't get messed up if they got dinged. These had orange felt attached to the soles, so they didn't make as much noise on the set. The yellow brick road set.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, exactly. And that makes sense for anybody in production. We've got a lot of friends and fam in the world of movie making and motion pictures here in our fair metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. You know, you have to make all sorts of little compromises and tweaks and fixes to get the effect you want on screen. Let's get to the saga of a guy named Kent Warner, which we have chosen to call a memorabilia savior. So, as we know now, we're jumping around in time here, folks. There are four pairs of ruby slippers that were used on screen that we know exist today. And the reason they exist today is. Is entirely due to our buddy Kent. He was working in the costume department of an MGM project, and for decades, as we mentioned at the top, the studios didn't really care for their old movie props. You made the thing, you hope it played well in theaters and for the audience, and then you left stuff to gather dust in case you needed it again. So if you did a film in ancient Egypt or something, you had all that costumery or all those props, and you would just literally put them in storage on the off chance you might be able to do another film about.

[Noel Brown]

Get another Egyptian picture coming up.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, or Greek film. You know what I mean?

[Noel Brown]

And that kind of shortsightedness, too, as we know, extended to the way they stored film as well. Like, you had a lot of archival issues because of the fact that these film stocks were susceptible to something called vinegar syndrome as well. Like, there's a thing that happens when you leave these things unprotected where they start to more or less degrade over time. Not to mention, Ben, you're absolutely right, fire hazards. So a lot of this stuff was very short sighted. They did not look at this as a long term play in terms of archiving and making sure that this stuff would be around for future generations to enjoy on its own merits in terms of like museum quality. And can I also just really quickly give a shout out to somebody who I know, you know and love, friend of the show and former How Stuff Works alum Russ Vick, who works over there at the center for Puppetry Arts? I just, I hadn't thought about Russ in a minute and I saw a video on their Instagram of Russ doing some incredible puppet restoration on Globey from Pee Wee's Playhouse. And that is a very similar type of process to what would have had to have been done cleaning individually. These sequence, you know, so you had to know about what kind of weird methods were used at the time and then adjust accordingly. So you're doing a good job in cleaning it rather than making it worse.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, Russ is an absolute, utter legend. Good friend of the show, good friend of ours, and he works in rarefied air as a restoration expert in a very specific genre. Do check out the center for Puppetry Arts if you ever have the opportunity to visit Atlanta. We are huge fans of very specific museums and by golly, by gosh, that is indeed one. This episode of Ridiculous History is brought to you in part by American Public University.

[Noel Brown]

You're juggling a lot. Full time job side hustle, maybe a family.

[Ben Bolan]

And now you're thinking about grad school.

[Noel Brown]

That's not crazy, that's ambitious.

[Ben Bolan]

At American Public University, they respect the hustle and they're built for it.

[Noel Brown]

Their flexible online master's programs are made for real life because big dreams deserve a real path.

[Ben Bolan]

Learn more about APU's 40 plus career relevant master's degrees and certificates at APU apus.edu.

[Noel Brown]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Kal Penn]

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[Ben Bolan]

To the point about what happens to these shoes. I've gotta tell everybody. This reminds me of when I was appearing in commercials for big companies and we would have a production that lasts a couple days or whatever. Everybody in the crew walks off with stuff, right? You hit up crafty, you get a 12 pack of whatever soda is left over. You might also just like members of the wizard of Oz production crew, you might just walk off with a souvenir, you know, a little relic of your time there. And the studio heads don't care Louis Meyer is doing other stuff, like frantically and aggressively harassing women.

[Noel Brown]

Yep, story for another day. But that's absolutely true, as was the case with a lot of the big wigs in these days. And, hey, much more recent time, as we know. And you hear stories even in more recent times, of actors walking off with pieces of wardrobe and stuff like that. You're not technically supposed to, but it does happen. But in these days, it was not even, like an unspoken thing that it was a. No, no. It was just they didn't really care. And that was largely because, again, of that shortsightedness. So whatever stuff got left was just thrown kind of haphazardly into warehouses or basements or barns, barely cataloged, just kind of very willy nilly sort of ad hoc operation. But one person who absolutely did care was that Kent Warner that we talked about, who worked for MGM in 1969 when the studio had just been sold. And we're basically doing a bit of house cleaning. So there was a lot of stuff to comb through. Imagine, like you're one little storage unit. This is that times, you know, 100k.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah. And so our buddy Kent looks at the studio heads, at the top brass as he's trying to clear out all these dusty relics of older films. And they say, all right, burn it. Burn it all. Just start burning stuff. And as he's about to set this bonfire, he sees an overcoat. And he looks a little closer. Aye, what's Luis? He says in a perfect impression. And. And he looks inside the lining of the coat and someone has stitched the name Bogart. It turns out this is the overcoat that Bogart is wearing in Casablanca. And he starts to say, wait, what if this is part of history, not just stuff we should burn? And he goes to the studio and he says, hey, I know you guys want me to burn all this stuff, but can we keep it? Because it may be important later. And everyone at the studio is like, I don't care.

[Noel Brown]

And so it's wild to me, the lack of foresight on this stuff. It just seems like it's their job to kind of think about legacy stuff and literal, no pun intended, big picture scenarios.

[Ben Bolan]

But let's not paint them as villains, though.

[Noel Brown]

Absolutely not. It's just more of like a. I don't know, it was sort of the way things were done at the time. But what do you got?

[Ben Bolan]

They had. Not me, but they had other things on their mind. And the reason I'm saying we can't paint them entirely as villains, can't technicolor them as monsters is because they didn't get in the way of Kent taking this stuff.

[Noel Brown]

Very true.

[Ben Bolan]

You know, they said, essentially, they probably said, we need the square footage. We need the space for other stuff. So you do with it what you want. You can take it, you can burn it. We don't care. We're not going to charge you. And he does that. He takes this and eventually stars from some of these earlier films coming to him. For instance, Debbie Reynolds becomes a regular customer of Kent's, and she would call him up and say, hey, can you find costumes from films I did in the past, like Singing in the Rain? And they would go digging, and he would literally meet her in a parking lot behind a drugstore, a Rite Aid on Fairfax and Sunset, and sell her stuff from the trunk of his car.

[Noel Brown]

Pretty cool, man. He was a real wheeler dealer. And there were other situations, like, where he would provide some of these pieces to other actors who maybe were looking for something that had a particular sentimental value. Sometimes he would just gift these pieces to folks who maybe didn't even know it was coming or it never even occurred to them to ask about, like an example where Bette Davis was working on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on the lot, and. And Warner brought her a Queen Elizabeth costume that she'd worn in the Virgin Queen 1955 film that she actually won an Academy Award for. And so, as Jordan points out, all in all, we dig Kent Warner's vibe. He is a venerable Robin Hood of memorabilia, right?

[Ben Bolan]

Stealing from the studio, given to the people, but it's not really stealing. He's just finding it.

[Noel Brown]

He more or less had permission.

[Ben Bolan]

He did. He very much did. So at this point, our cigar chomping tycoons of the film industry, the studio top dogs, they say, we're sitting on a gold mine here. Chop, chop, chop. And they have a huge auction in May of 1970. And this auction is comprised of hundreds of thousands of various props and costumes from over the year. They go to our man Kent, and they say, find these things. Anything of value, catalog them. And this is where Kent finds the ruby slippers. He is pawing through almost 500,000 different costume sets, and then he discovers them in. And Jordan is on the fence about this. The shoes are either discovered in a barn that used to be on the MGM lot or in a neglected basement. He finds three pairs of these slippers. He only turns over one pair to MGM for the auction, and that becomes their centerpiece. That's like their big ticket Item. Then he sells another pair. He's side hustling behind the Rite Aid, right? And he keeps a third pair for himself. And Noel, the pair he keeps for himself is the best pair, arguably the.

[Noel Brown]

Nicest looking ones that would have been reserved for those close up shots. Super beautiful and elaborate. So what happened to the shoes? The MGM auction took place again in 1970 and they were bought by a lawyer for 15 grand. The lawyer was acting on behalf of an unidentified client. And that's believed to be the pair that is currently on permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of American history in DC. It's been there since 1979. Since then there are a lot of Aussies, you know, people in the Oz circles referring to them as the people's shoes.

[Ben Bolan]

Oh, and for a quick inflation calculator, Max, if we could get a boop.

[Noel Brown]

Of course. Excuse me, we must.

[Kal Penn]

And a boop.

[Noel Brown]

He booped off. Mike, we've got the.

[Ben Bolan]

So $15,000 in 1970 is $125,248.45 today.

[Noel Brown]

Still seems like a deal to me, considering where we're heading. I think we teased that at the top of the show, the people's shoes. To this day, that attraction is so popular that the carpet surrounding the case in the museum has had to be replaced on multiple occasions due to the wear and tear from all of the the tourists and Aussies coming in to take a look. A lot of very observant visitors will even notice that the shoes on display are actually mismatched. Two of the pairs that we talked about of those various dupes got jumbled up presumably back at the MGM lot. And to this day they've never actually been rematched with one another.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah. Ed, let's go back to the fancy shoes that that Warner kept for a while. They're called the Witch's shoes. They're the ones you see on the spoiler for wizard of Oz. There's a death. Very early on in the show, the Wicked Witch of the east has a house dropped on her while she's wearing these lucky iconic magic shoes. Those are the pair he is coveting, right? And holding with him. They are from those shots. Eventually, in 1981, he sells that pair at another auction for $12,000. One more inflation calculator. That's. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Boop it.

[Kal Penn]

And a boop.

[Ben Bolan]

Boop it. Bop it, flex it. What? What's that?

[Noel Brown]

That's the thing. Yep, the bop it. The boop. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you twist it, pull it, punch it. Stab it. I don't know.

[Ben Bolan]

And Max, we need sound cues for all of those. So it's $12,000 in 1981, is the equivalent of $42,769.11 today.

[Noel Brown]

Man, a buck used to go so much further, didn't it?

[Ben Bolan]

No kidding. So, unfortunately, we know that Kent Warner is no longer with us. He passed away in 1984 due to some. The witch's shoes. Change hands a number of times. Or change feet. Because it's shoes.

[Noel Brown]

Because it's shoes, it changes feet and they're mismatched. Wait, no. Maybe these are these. Maybe these. We don't know if these were mismatched or not.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they change feet a number of times. Ed, why am I doing that joke? It's crazy that I'm allowed to vote or drive. Anyway, so at some point, these witches shoes get acquired by a cabal, a shadowy Hollywood cabal for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum. Who's in the cabal? We don't know all the members, but we know Leo DiCaprio was there. We know Steven Spielberg was there.

[Noel Brown]

Was this the Pussy Posse?

[Ben Bolan]

Is that what it's called?

[Noel Brown]

No, that was what Leonardo DiCaprio's little gang of homies was called.

[Ben Bolan]

Oh, wow.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, it was Leo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, a handful of other. Toby. Toby was in the. In the p. Yeah, I say it.

[Ben Bolan]

Like I'm about to call him after this and tell him he seemed like.

[Noel Brown]

A sweet little cuddly fellow. Yeah, no, he apparently banging his way all over town.

[Ben Bolan]

Oh, geez. Well, there's another pair of shoes. The contest pair. This was not acquired by our buddy Kent. A Tennessee woman named Roberta Bauman got a. A genuine pair of the ruby slippers after she entered a contest called. Name the best movies of 1939 was the answer.

[Noel Brown]

The wizard of Oz. That's the best movies of 1939, dude.

[Ben Bolan]

The Ruby slippers were the door prize. They were the second place prize.

[Noel Brown]

The contest pair. Yeah. To illustrate just how little the organizers thought of these, we need look no further than. Than that very fact, Ben. They were the second place prize. They were sold in 1988 for 150 grand to a man who worked for the Walt Disney Company who had plans to put them in an entryway for their great movie ride in what was then known as their MGM park. They were sold again in 2000 for a devilish amount of $666,000 to LA memorabilia dealers who have not displayed the shoes reportedly. And that's probably, as Jordan points out, for good reason, when you hear about what happened to the fourth and final pair.

[Ben Bolan]

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[Ed Helms]

Hey everyone, Ed Helms here.

[Kal Penn]

And hi, I'm Cal Penn, and we're the host of Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

[Ed Helms]

This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Jenny Garth, host of the iHeart podcast. I choose me to discuss the new Audible adaptation of the timeless Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice. This is not a trick question. There's no wrong answer. What role would I play?

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[Ben Bolan]

But I can see you as Mr. Darcy.

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[Ed Helms]

Okay, that's really sweet. I appreciate that. But are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr. Bennett. Here, listen to Earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Ben Bolan]

The final pair of ruby slippers were those that we mentioned earlier, the ones Kent sold on the side in 1970, and he did that just to earn a little bit extra cash. That's the other side of the mismatched pair at the Smithsonian. So for a long time, these were on display at the Judy Garland Museum over in Grand Rapids, where Judy Garland used to live. And then on the night of August 27, 2005, a thief broke in in the night, and he smashed the plexiglass case with a sledgehammer. And he ran away with the shoes. He didn't put them on. He just held them and ran away.

[Noel Brown]

Wouldn't it have been cool, though, if he had, like, dropped through the ceiling, like, Mission Impossible and used a diamond on the glass to cut, like, a perfect circle out of it? Nah, this guy was not thinking that.

[Ben Bolan]

That would be so cool.

[Noel Brown]

He was a smash and grab artist.

[Ben Bolan]

I've started saying falcon when I think stuff is cool. That'd be so falcon of him.

[Noel Brown]

That would be absolutely hella falcon. What was not falcon was the fact that these things were now missing. And an anonymous donor offered a million bucks in exchange for information leading to their recovery. The FBI actually got involved and a manhunt began, which I just got.

[Ben Bolan]

13 year manhunt. I just gotta say. Priorities, right? The. The FBI had other stuff to do.

[Noel Brown]

I would think so. I mean, MGM had other stuff to do. You'd think the FBI would definitely have other stuff to do.

[Ben Bolan]

How many children can you feed with a million dollars? How many libraries or hospitals can you help out? Anyway, let me get off this.

[Noel Brown]

No, it's a good point, Ben, but. And they. They. This is not the. This is not all they did, right? They actually dredged a lake, searched an old mine. You know, all the things you do usually when you're looking for a body, slippers, I guess the fact that they were potentially worth a lot of money. But dude did not seem to realize that once he got the info from his jeweler, that they were not, in fact, encrusted with actual precious stones.

[Ben Bolan]

Exactly. Yeah. Can you imagine? He's like, I went into all this trouble. The shoes are recovered in 2018 because there is an FBI sting operation in Minneapolis. A guy approaches this insurer and says, hey, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. I can maybe get these shoes back for you, but I need $200,000 more than the $1 million being offered.

[Noel Brown]

Very specific.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, very specific. He's definitely looking for a vigorish there.

[Noel Brown]

Yep. And it would appear that the FBI never gave any further information about the sting. But five years later, grand jury indicted a Minnesota man by the name of Terry John Martins on one count of theft for which he pled guilty. Terry John Martins. Jordan puts it a dumb mobster or the dumbest mobster. I think we've already hinted at the level of his lack of preparedness and seeming ineptitude every stage of this operation. Martin was a former mobster who had a long history of being, as they call them, breaking and entering, burgling jobs. Not so much heist kind of guy. More of a smash and grab type dude, you know, glorified purse snatcher. He also was known for receiving stolen goods, potentially fencing them, et cetera, before retiring from his life of crime after being released from prison in 1996.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah. So this is not a guy who's a hitman. He's not a nice man. He didn't make his bones. But he was very into what we call petty crime. A second story artist. According to his public defender, as he was trying to live the Square Life Post 1996, a former associate from his criminal past came to him and said, one last job.

[Noel Brown]

That's the one that always gets you any.

[Ben Bolan]

That's the one that gets you. You know what I mean? Walk away from the casino of crime while you can. It's 2005. This guy comes to him and he says, terrifying Terry, I gotta tell you about a very special pair of shoes. And at first, Terry says, nah, I'm out of the life. You know, I'm into Beanie Babies or whatever now. And so at first, he passes on it, according to the attorney, Dane decray. But old habits die hard. This is a quote from Dane. And the thought of a final score kept Terry up at night.

[Noel Brown]

It Always does.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. So after a lot of deep thought, some come to Jesus moment moments there in the dark, Terry relapses and he says, all right, I'm your huckleberry, I'll do it.

[Noel Brown]

I'll do the smash and grab for you. He, of course, as we mentioned, mistakenly believed the ruby slippers were adorned with actual rubies. And it wasn't until he stole the things, took them to a so called jewelry fence, someone who buys and sells, of course, stolen goods in the jewelry world. Possibly someone you might find in the gem district as portrayed in the film Uncut Gems.

[Ben Bolan]

Sure.

[Noel Brown]

In Manhattan. It was in fact, of course, as we'd mentioned, made of glass and sequins.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. Party City sequins.

[Noel Brown]

Wait a minute. Why would. Party. Party City didn't exist back then.

[Ben Bolan]

We're just styling on it.

[Noel Brown]

Okay, got it.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. Just to say that they are of.

[Noel Brown]

Low value also, rip, Party City, it's gone. No more Party City, no more parties.

[Ben Bolan]

The real Party City is the friends we make along the way.

[Noel Brown]

That's very true. So, Terry, John Martin reportedly had never seen the wizard of. Which is weird.

[Ben Bolan]

He was too. Well, he was a prison for a while. That's true.

[Noel Brown]

But that's also the kind of movie they'd like show on a movie night in prison. You know, I don't know, maybe it's.

[Ben Bolan]

A little too racy. Right. But he also, he also was living a very different B and E focused life. So he was. Yes, he was born in the late 1940s. He was in the prime age because this became a cult classic so quickly. But he, he was about the idea of stealing the shoes as a gem heist to this point. So when he learned that the ruby slippers, indeed not encrusted with a ton of rubies, they weren't like Faberge eggs for your feet or whatever. He thought they were worthless and he just kept them for years.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, he wasn't sitting on them hoping that they would like, appreciate in value. He was just sort of done with them, which is interesting, I guess.

[Ben Bolan]

GM'd them just like the studio.

[Noel Brown]

You know what, he did MGM them. It is interesting though, because you'd think he would have knowing, at least in his mind that this was not going to have been worth the risk. Risk that he has already run by doing this crime. Why didn't he just ditch them or give them to somebody else or whatever.

[Ben Bolan]

He says he did 48 hours or less than 48 hours after the heist, our second story artist gave these to a third party but the answers aren't clear. We do know the shoes ultimately get returned to the museum. And our buddy Terry, who is in his late 70s at this point, he goes to court hearings, he's in a wheelchair. He has to breathe supplemental oxygen because he has copd, which is unfortunately, as some of us may know, that's a very dangerous condition. He pleads guilty. He's sentenced to time served, which means he doesn't go back to prison in January of last year. Last year, and he gets time served because of his very poor health. In his guilty plea, his lawyer says, I think you wanted to take responsibility and move on with his life, the little life he has left. I hate hearing that.

[Noel Brown]

I know. He goes on. I think he lived a fast and loose life, and I think he's okay with what's happening now. I think he's at peace with it, frankly. And Jordan points out that at time, the same time, he was given six months to live. However, we have not seen any updates as to his. His passing or lack thereof. So it would appear that he may still be living in hospice today.

[Ben Bolan]

And our last note for today's episode. Those ruby slippers that were stolen and returned were put up for sale by heritage auctions in December 2024. And the auctioneers believed that these slippers would earn something like $3 million.

[Noel Brown]

That's right. $3 million is where it got in the first, like, couple of seconds of the auction opening, more than 800 people placed bids. And ultimately, an unknown buyer spent 32.5 million bucks on these, making them the most valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever to be sold at auction. And I think we actually, we talked about this story on strange news when it happened, because that was a big deal when this sold and. And it had a connection to this heist story. So it's really cool to kind of dig in and get some more of the details surrounding this incredible and bizarre and, dare we say, ridiculous story of what happened to the ruby slippers.

[Ben Bolan]

And this is so. This is our last point. This is so illustrative of how arbitrary value can be for memorabilia. In 1989, as Jordan points out, a pair of of actual ruby encrusted ruby slippers were made as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the wizard of Oz film adaptation. And they were only worth about 3 million. So much less than the fake ones. This is so nuts. This has been such a wild ride. Thank you, folks, for tuning in and walking the yellow brick road with us. Big thanks to Our super producer, Mr. Max Williams as well as Alex Williams, who composed this track, of course.

[Noel Brown]

And thanks again to Jordan Runtog. And check out his podcast, Too Much Information, where he does deep dives and all kinds of fun pop culture stuff ranging from, you know, I think like a multi, multi part episode on the making of the film Titanic. So do give him a listen. Christopher Osiotos and Eve's Jeffcoats here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, the Quister. AJ Bon Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler.

[Ben Bolan]

Ah, yes, yes. Mangesh Hatakatur, friend of the show. We might have him on later. Our pals Daily Zeitgeist, our pals at ridiculous crime. If you dig us in stories like this, you will love them. So get thee to thy podcast platform of choice. And I've gotta tell you, I always wonder which character I would be in the wizard of Oz.

[Noel Brown]

I think you're kind of a. I don't know, you're a bit of the wizard, man.

[Ben Bolan]

I think that's nicest that you've said to me in 2025.

[Noel Brown]

Well, I mean, I don't want to.

[Ben Bolan]

Oh, is it not a compliment? It is.

[Noel Brown]

It is a compliment in this context. Ben, you are the. The version of the wizard that comes clean and gives out all of the honorifics and all of these shocks, man.

[Ben Bolan]

Who do you want to be in the show?

[Noel Brown]

I don't know, man. I'm sort of a cowardly lion type figure, I guess. Or I could be a scarecrow. I identify with both of those cats.

[Ben Bolan]

I identify with the scarecrow. I think we all are at some point in our lives. Well, thanks so much, man. Everybody, tune in next week. We've got more ridiculous history on the way.

[Noel Brown]

See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

[Kal Penn]

Hey, audiobook lovers, I'm Cal Penn.

[Ed Helms]

I'm Ed Helms.

[Kal Penn]

Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with our new podcast, Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

[Ed Helms]

Each week we sit down with your favorite iHeart podcast hosts and some very special guests to discuss the latest and greatest audiobooks from Audible.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to earsay on America's number one podcast network, iHeart Followersay, and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

[Noel Brown]

Hey, what's up?

[Mario Lopez]

It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor. Check in in Ask questions. Stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to [e-mail] blue campaign.

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