• Darlene Flynn, 58, otherwise known as 'The Shoe Lady,' or 'Queen of Sole,' was found dead at her California home on Monday
• She met former live-in boyfriend Justin Smith, 29, at a bar while she was wearing her 'sexy light up shoes'
• Mr Smith revealed to TLC last year that Flynn made him serve her a shoe-shaped breakfast while they were together
  

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 08:07 EST, 26 July 2013 | UPDATED: 08:38 EST, 26 July 2013

Prosecutors say a South Californian woman with a world-record collection of more than 15,000 shoes was beaten with a baseball bat and found dead in her swimming pool.

Justin Smith, the 29-year-old boyfriend of Darlene Flynn, 58, otherwise known as 'The Shoe Lady,' or 'Queen of Sole,' was arrested on suspicion of murder and arraigned Thursday in relation to her death. He didn't enter a plea, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.

Authorities say they went to the Guinness World Record holder's home on Monday after a report of a man and a woman yelling.

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When they arrived, they saw a shirtless man running away from the property and found Flynn's body, which had suffered blunt-force injuries, in her backyard pool. It was unclear how long she had been dead.

Mr Smith was arrested later that day near a highway.

Friends of the couple say the relationship had been volatile, and neighbor Steven Danford says they had a rocky past.

'I'd hear her yelling. They'd be fighting a little bit, every couple of months or so,' Mr Danford told ABC News station KABC-TV.

'He'd be fighting with her, and he'd take off, and come back a couple hours later. They just did not get along real well … but he kept coming back.'

The Guinness Book of World Records says Flynn had nearly 15,000 shoe-related items, including shoe-shaped furniture, lamps and jewelry, estimated to be worth $500,000. Small claims court records show Flynn alleged Mr Smith owed her nearly $10,000.

Flynn started her collection following a divorce in 2001. By 2006 she had 7,765 items and had been inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Among the more famous items are a replica of the Disney Cinderella glass slipper, Dorothy's red shoes from the Wizard of Oz, an array of Betty Boop shoes and Barbie heels by the bundle.

In 2012, on TLC's My Collection Obsession, Flynn revealed she met Mr Smith at a local bar. 'I was wearing my sexy light up shoes. . . we danced all night long,' she said.

When Flynn first brought Mr Smith over to see her shoe collection, she said he was 'blown away by it'.

Wearing a cowboy hat, Mr Smith, who lived with Flynn, revealed to TLC: 'That's all she talks about when she gets up in the morning, shoes, shoes, shoes.

'She's got her shoe toothbrush, shoe shower curtain, she even makes me make her a shoe breakfast. I'll bake scrambled eggs and bacon and then when I put it onto the plate I'll fold it into a shoe and serve it to her.'

Ms Smith also admitted that the couple would 'sometimes argue about her shoes'.

'Sometimes I think she gets too many shoes, but I learned to just deal with it,' he said.

Glass display cabinets adorn nearly every room in the home, and it took Flynn a staggering two full weeks to remove each item from its display cabinet and set it out.

She admitted in an interview with the North County Times: 'I don't know why it had to be shoes. I just love them and it kind of got out of control.'

She said she was inspired to buy her first 28 shoe figurines after visiting a family friend who collected them, around the time that she and her husband divorced.

'I didn't have to focus on a husband anymore and I had time to concentrate on the shoes,' she said.

'I love having them around. I look at them everyday and I remember when I bought them and my travels around the world.'

Though she had spent up to $1,800 on a single miniature shoe, Flynn's most treasured item was a boot worn by her late grandmother on her wedding day.

The mother-of-one said she could wear 'only' about 100 pairs from her shoe collection, and aspires to one day create a shoe museum.

She almost even became the real-life lady who lived in a shoe, having once placed a $6,000 bid on eBay to purchase a 16ft by 20ft building shaped like a shoe. Unfortunately for Flynn, someone else beat her to it.

'I would live in a shoe, if it was big enough to hold my other shoes,' she admitted.

Scroll on to see highlights from Darlene Flynn's collection...