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TUSTIN, California — Police say a "highly intelligent" Park City con man befriended a fine-art aficionado with a severe illness, then waited until the ailing collector stepped out one day and burglarized his Southern California home of about $1 million in jewelry, checkbooks, cash and top-dollar paintings.
The June 2015 heist hit a snag.
The homeowner returned before Daniel David Courson could finish loading the haul, including "large amounts of cash," in a stolen silver Tacoma, authorities said. Courson fled before police arrived.
Now, Park City officers say Courson is living in their upscale Utah mountain town. On Monday, they believed they were about to nab the suspect who is in his early 40s, but someone tipped Courson off beforehand and he eluded them.
"He is highly intelligent and able to reinvent himself in new towns wherever he goes," Tustin police said in a Tuesday prepared statement.
The Orange County agency has issued a $1 million warrant for his arrest in connection with the 2015 burglary — and for failing to show up for California parole hearings. They are seeking help from the public to find him.
Authorities say Courson is white, 6-foot-1, and about 185 pounds, with blue eyes and graying, close-cropped brown hair. He works out, police said, and switches up his look by wearing wigs and shaving his beard.
In April, Tustin detectives learned Courson was living in Park City, where police say he has been giving guitar lessons and going by several fake names, including Max Taylor; Scott E. Taylor; Max Robert Taylor; Mark Pavlik and Jeremy Penrod.
He also has been commuting back and forth to Salt Lake City to see someone he's dating, driving the same Toyota truck with TD emblems on the side panels, a small lift with black rims and the Utah license plate reading E048HU, police said.
Authorities are familiar with Courson.
He was convicted of a string of bank robberies in San Diego and Orange counties in 2006, and wore baseball caps and wider-brimmed hats as he slipped notes to tellers. The distinctive headware made a name for him as the "floppy-hat bandit."
He served eight years in prison and was released on parole in 2014, Tustin police said in a prepared statement.
Police warn people not to approach him, and to call law enforcement instead. They ask anyone with questions to call Tustin detective R. Newton: 714-573-3249 or 562-292-0140.
