Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Multiple pairs of ruby slippers were made for the film, including these ones displayed in Beverly Hills in 2011

A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz has been found 13 years after being stolen, according to US authorities.

They were taken from a Minnesota museum in 2005, when someone broke in through a window late at night.

Three others pairs of ruby slippers worn by Garland in the 1939 film are known to exist.

An anonymous donor once offered a $1m (£775,000) reward for the stolen pair's whereabouts and the thief's name.

However, the reward expired on the tenth anniversary of the robbery.

It is unknown if the shoes' recovery is related to any tip-offs.

In press conference on Tuesday afternoon, no specific details were given about where they were found or how.

FBI special agent Joan Sanborn indicated that the investigation was still ongoing. "We've gathered lots of information on this case. We believe there's lots more to give," she said.

The slippers are often said to among the most valued props in movie history.

This pair was insured for $1m but experts have said they could be worth two times that now.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Judy Garland played the lead role of Dorothy Gale in the classic musical

How were they stolen?

The Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Garland's birthplace, had been loaned the slippers from a collector named Michael Shaw.

The theft was described as a simple smash-and-grab, with the glass display case destroyed and the slippers snatched.

Almost no clues were left behind, neither footprints nor fingerprints, and the surveillance camera was not working that night.

"I literally felt like I was hit in the stomach when I got the call," Mr Shaw told Newsweek in 2015. "My knees buckled, and I went right down on the floor. I had taken care of those shoes for 35 years!"

Jon Miner, the museum's co-founder, told the magazine he was also devastated. "I cried," he said. "I couldn't believe this happened to us because it was the stupidest thing."

The museum has kept the podium - labelled "Dorothy's Ruby Slippers" - empty since they disappeared.

A documentary about the theft - Who Stole The Ruby Slippers? - was released in 2015.

The history of the ruby slippers</s>The stolen ruby slippers from the “The Wizard of Oz” have been recovered!

Over a decade ago, a pair of ruby slippers worn by the lovely Judy Garland in the 1939 classic film, “The Wizard of Oz” were stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota!

Surprise, surprise … the shoes were found and recovered in a sting operation earlier this summer, but apparently the case is still FAR from over.

Read more about it here.</s>A pair of sequined ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard Of Oz, which were stolen from a museum in her home town 13 years ago, have been recovered, officials said.

The slippers were taken from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in August 2005 by someone who climbed through a window and broke into the small display case.

The shoes were insured for a million dollars. Law enforcement offered an initial 250,000 dollars reward, and a fan in Arizona offered another million in 2015.

The FBI is expected to announce details of how the shoes were found at a news conference. North Dakota prosecutor Christopher Myers and Grand Rapids Police Chief Scott Johnson are due to attend.

The slippers had been on loan to the museum from Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw.

Three other pairs that Garland wore in the movie are held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Smithsonian and a private collector.

The ruby slippers are key in the 1939 movie. After mysteriously landing in the colourful Land of Oz after a tornado hit her farm in Kansas, Garland’s character Dorothy has to click the heels of her slippers three times and repeat “there’s no place like home” to return.

The shoes are made from about a dozen different materials, including wood pulp, silk thread, gelatin, plastic and glass.

Most of the ruby colour comes from sequins, but the bows of the shoes contain red glass beads.

The genre-busting Wizard Of Oz — presented in black and white and colour — was a box office smash and won multiple Academy Awards, including Oscars for best picture and best cinematography.

Garland, who was born Frances Gumm, lived in Grand Rapids, about 200 miles north of Minneapolis, until she was four, when her family moved to Los Angeles. She died of a barbiturate overdose in 1969.

The Judy Garland Museum, which opened in 1975 in the house where she lived, says it has the world’s largest collection of Garland and Wizard Of Oz memorabilia.</s>GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. - Click your heels together three times, search for 13 years...and you might find a long lost pair of 'Wizard of Oz' ruby slippers.

Since 2005, investigators have searched for a stolen pair of ruby slippers worn by Minnesota-born actress Judy Garland in the classic movie The Wizard of Oz. The slippers were taken from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota that August when someone gained entrance by breaking the window on an emergency exit door and broke into the small display case housing the slippers. Investigators say the smash-and-grab took 45 seconds or less.

The hometown of actress Judy Garland was rocked when someone broke into a museum dedicated to the Wizard of Oz star and absconded with her ruby slippers. (KARE)

While speculation on who was responsible ranged from professional thieves to drunken teens, this was no small take: The ruby slippers were insured for $1 million.

"The ruby slippers are the Holy Grail of all Hollywood memorabilia," says collectibles expert and author Rhys Thomas. "Value today... the last pair sold for $2 million privately."

While details are scarce at this time, law enforcement officials and the FBI say more than a decade after the heist, the slippers have been found.

Tips led divers to a lake near Grand Rapids in June of 2015, to scour the bottom in search of the ruby slippers. (KARE)

Four pairs of ruby slippers worn by Garland in the movie are known to exist. The shoes are made from about a dozen different materials, including wood pulp, silk thread, gelatin, plastic and glass. Most of the ruby color comes from sequins, but the bows of the shoes contain red glass beads.

On Tuesday at 1 p.m., the U.S. Attorney representing North Dakota, the Grand Rapids Police Chief and agents from the FBI will host a press conference in Minneapolis to announce the recovery of the slippers.

We'll continue to update this story as the day unfolds. .</s>A pair of ruby slippers used in The Wizard Of Oz and later stolen from a Minnesota museum were recovered in a sting operation after a man approached the shoes’ insurer and said he could help get them back, the FBI said. The slippers were on loan to the Judy Garland Museum in the late actress’ hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, when they were taken in 2005 by someone who climbed through a window and broke into a small display case. The shoes were insured for one million dollars. The FBI said a man approached the insurer in summer 2017 and said he could help get them back. Grand Rapids police asked for the FBI’s help and after a nearly year-long investigation, the slippers were recovered in July during a sting operation in Minneapolis.

The FBI said no-one has yet been arrested or charged in the case, but they have “multiple suspects” and continue to investigate. As they unveiled the recovered slippers at a news conference on Tuesday, they asked anyone with information about the theft to contact them. “We’re not done. We have a lot of work to do,” Christopher Myers, the US attorney for North Dakota, said. He said he would handle any prosecution. The North Dakota link to the case was not evident and authorities declined to explain it. The slippers had been on loan to the Garland museum from Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw. Three other pairs that Garland wore in the film are held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian and a private collector.

The stolen slippers’ authenticity was verified by comparing them with the pair at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington. The ruby slippers are key in the 1939 movie. After mysteriously landing in the colourful Land of Oz after a tornado hit her farm in Kansas, Garland’s character Dorothy has to click the heels of her slippers three times and repeat “there’s no place like home” to return. Rhys Thomas, author of The Ruby Slippers Of Oz, called the slippers “the Holy Grail of Hollywood memorabilia”. “They are maybe the most iconic cinematic prop or costume in movie history, and in fact, in cultural history,” he said. Mr Thomas estimated that this particular pair could be worth between two and seven million dollars. He said it is not clear in which scenes they were used, but he was “99%” sure that they appeared in the film.</s>Click your heels together three times, because a pair of ruby slippers from the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz” is coming home.

The Minneapolis Division of the FBI announced Tuesday that a missing pair of authentic slippers that Judy Garland wore while playing Dorothy Gale in the musical film has been recovered after more than a decade.

The iconic shoes were stolen from an exhibit in the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in August 2005. A thief made off with one of the world's most valuable pieces of Hollywood memorabilia after smashing a Plexiglas holding case, Forbes reports.

The sequined slippers, which were created by Hollywood costume designer Gilbert Adrian, are one of at least four pairs known to exist, according to the Smithsonian.

One pair is displayed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, donated by an anonymous benefactor who bought them for $15,000 in 1979.

Another pair was auctioned off for $666,000 in 2000. Actress Debbie Reynolds also owned a pair of the authentic ruby slippers, purchased at auction for $510,000 in 2011.

That is nothing close to the value placed on the stolen pair. The slippers, which were insured for $1 million, may be worth between $2 million and $3 million, John Kelsch, executive director of the Judy Garland Museum, told the Associated Press in 2015.

Thomas Shaw, who owned the missing pair of heels, told Forbes that they were used for close-up shots when Dorthy clicked her heels together. The scene accompanies one of the most famous lines from the movie: "Click your heels together three times and say 'There's no place like home' and you'll be there."

The Minneapolis branch of the FBI is holding a news conference to disclose more details into the shoes' discovery Tuesday at 1 p.m. CT.

More: Jerry Maren, last surviving Munchkin from 'Wizard of Oz,' dies at 98

More: The first look of Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland in 'Judy' will send you over the rainbow</s>The famous ruby slippers worn in the Wizard of Oz have been found, after being stolen 13 years ago.

In the 1939 film, Judy Garland clicks her sequinned heels three times repeating ‘There’s no place like home’ to get back to Kansas.

The shoes are some of the most famous film memorabilia in the world, and had been kept at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

They went missing in August 2005 by someone who climbed through a window and broke into a small display case.

The pair, insured for a million dollars, was recovered after a man approached the insurer in summer 2017 and said he could help get them back.

Grand Rapids police asked for the FBI’s help and after a nearly year-long investigation, the slippers were recovered in July during a sting operation in Minneapolis.

The FBI said no one has yet been arrested or charged in the case, but they have ‘multiple suspects’ and continue to investigate.

Law enforcement offered an initial $250,000 reward when they were stolen, and a fan in Arizona offered another million in 2015

The slippers had been on loan to the museum from Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw.

Three other pairs that Garland wore in the movie are held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Smithsonian and a private collector.

The shoes are made from about a dozen different materials, including wood pulp, silk thread, gelatin, plastic and glass.

Most of the ruby colour comes from sequins, but the bows of the shoes contain red glass beads.

The Wizard Of Oz – presented in black and white and colour – was a box office smash and won multiple Academy Awards, including Oscars for best picture and best cinematography.

Garland, who was born Frances Gumm, lived in Grand Rapids, about 200 miles north of Minneapolis, until she was four, when her family moved to Los Angeles. She died of a barbiturate overdose in 1969.

The Judy Garland Museum, which opened in 1975 in the house where she lived, says it has the world’s largest collection of Garland and Wizard Of Oz memorabilia.

MORE: Woman sends ‘cheating’ ex video killing his fish with bleach shouting ‘die, die, die’

MORE: Meghan Markle tells inspiring girl, 7, with spina bifida to ‘never stop smiling’</s>Glinda, the Good Witch in “The Wizard of Oz,” says it best when she describes the appeal of those ruby red slippers to the Wicked Witch of the West:

“Their magic must be very powerful, or she wouldn’t want them so badly.”

And so, for 13 years, the fate of a missing pair of red sequined slippers worn by actress Judy Garland as Dorothy has eluded law enforcement. But there’s no place like home, as they say, and the shoes have been found, according to the FBI.

On Tuesday afternoon, authorities intend to reveal details of the shoes’ recovery at the FBI Minneapolis headquarters. It’s unclear where they could end up or if anyone will be charged.

The shoes are one of four known pairs that Garland wore as Dorothy in the 1939 film. The shoes disappeared in the middle of the night in August 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the actress’ hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

“The biggest thing that ever happened to our museum was getting the slippers stolen,” museum co-founder Jon Miner told CNN affiliate KQDS in 2015. “We were literally crying.”

Since then, rumors swirled among residents and memorabilia collectors about where over the rainbow they could be. Valued at $2 million to $3 million, and thought to be able to fetch up to $5 million at auction, they would be hard to sell on the black market, and even harder to hide.

“Whoever has them, illicitly, has their hands full with them,” journalist Rhys Thomas said in the 2016 documentary, “The Slippers.”

“One way or another, over the course of time, the shoes will out you,” said Thomas, who tracked down several pairs of the famed shoes for a Los Angeles Times article published in 1988.

Memorabilia collector Michael Shaw loaned the slippers to the Judy Garland Museum for Grand Rapids’ annual “Wizard of Oz” festival in 2005. Shaw rejected the museum’s offer to store them in a vault each night because he didn’t want people handling the delicate shoes by moving them daily, he said in the “The Slippers.” “But most importantly, I was assured that the museum had security,” Shaw said in the film.

Museum staff arrived in the morning to find the shoes missing from a smashed glass case. The alarm had been tripped but a signal was not sent to police dispatch, museum co-founder John Kelsch said in the documentary. Miner and Kelsch vehemently denied rumors of an inside job. “We’re the ones that want to find them because they were entrusted to us,” Miner said. “Our people, they love the museum. They wouldn’t have done that. These are honest people,” Kelsch said.

Ten years later, the museum worked with the Itasca County Sheriff’s Dive Team to address the theory that someone threw the slippers in a nearby lake. During the 40th Annual “Wizard of Oz” Festival, divers scoured the depths of the Tioga Mine Pit Lake. But they came up empty-handed.

In the documentary, Shaw says he bought the shoes from a Hollywood costume designer who found them in MGM Studios’ backlot property in Culver City, California. As the story goes, Kent Warner found several pairs on a dusty shelf, and brought one to the famed MGM Studios auction in 1970. He kept the rest for himself — the exact number is not clear — selling them off to collectors, including Shaw.

Meanwhile, a Tennessee schoolteacher won another pair in a contest in 1940. She sold them at auction in 1988 to a private collector for $165,000.

Another pair has been on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, since 1979. In 2016, the organization launched an online campaign to raise money to restore their luster.

In 2012, Leonardo DiCaprio led a group of donors in purchasing a pair to be displayed at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, set to open this year in Los Angeles.</s>One pair of the slippers on display at the Smithsonian. Sergio Caltagirone via Wikimedia Commons
• The missing ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz" have been found after 13 years.
• The pair was stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in 2005 while on loan by a private collector.
• The FBI has not revealed the condition of the slippers or the identity of any suspects.

After being missing for more than a decade, Dorothy's iconic ruby slippers from the "The Wizard of Oz" have been found.

Hollywood's most famous slippers were stolen on August 28, 2005, from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The red-sequined shoes were one of four pairs worn by Judy Garland in the 1939 film.

They were on loan to the museum by a private collector when they were snatched. The plexiglass case protecting the shoes was smashed, though no fingerprints were left behind. All that remained of the shoes was a single red sequin.

Now, the New York Times reported that the FBI has located the stolen shoes. This comes after 13 years of investigation by federal, local, and private agents.

The shoes were on loan from a collector at the time they were stolen 13 years ago

Judy Garland wore these iconic shoes in "The Wizard of Oz." Warner Home Video

Michael Shaw is the collector who loaned the shoes to the Judy Garland Museum. After purchasing the pair in 1970 from a customer who found them on an MGM lot, Shaw would lend the shoes to different museums and donate the proceeds to children's charities. His collection also included movie props such as the witch's hat, a Munchkin outfit, and Dorothy's dress.

The shoes are valued at $2 million to $3 million, according to CNN, but could fetch up to $5 million at auction. Shaw reportedly refused the museum's offer to store the slippers in a secure vault each night because he did not want daily handling to damage the precious props.

This has led some to speculate Shaw could have given the Judy Garland Museum a fake pair of slippers and was himself behind the theft in order to receive an insurance payout, Newsweek reports.

The fact that the security cameras at the museum were not operational on the night of the theft also spurred theories that the crime was an inside job. However, an investigation into both Shaw and the museum led authorities to believe the crime was committed by an outside party.

There is no word on the final fate of the rediscovered shoes or if any charges will be brought

The FBI has not yet revealed the condition of the ruby slippers nor the identity of the suspect or suspects. It is unknown at this time if charges will be brought.

In a 2015 interview with Newsweek, Shaw stated that he no longer wants anything to do with the shoes: "I have no desire to have them again. After years of bringing joy and happiness to so many thousands and thousands of people by being able to see them, now to me they're a nightmare."</s>MINNEAPOLIS Federal authorities say they have recovered pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz" that were stolen from a Minnesota museum 13 years ago.

The slippers were taken from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids in August 2005 when someone went through a window and broke into the small display case. The shoes were insured for $1 million.

Four pairs of ruby slippers worn by Garland in the movie are known to exist. The shoes are made from about a dozen different materials, including wood pulp, silk thread, gelatin, plastic and glass. Most of the ruby colour comes from sequins, but the bows of the shoes contain red glass beads.
A pair of Judy Garland's famous ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz (1939) are recovered by police. The shoes were stolen from a museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota in 2005.