Police Arrest Overnight Home Burglar
Published on March 03, 2023
Palo Alto, CA – Police have arrested a man for burglarizing an occupied home overnight last week and connected him to three additional overnight prowling incidents as well.
On Monday, February 20, 2023, at about 7:18 p.m., our 24-hour dispatch center received a call reporting a residential burglary that had occurred at 2 a.m. in the 1300 block of Forest Avenue. The victim reported that she had been at home with her husband and young child at the time of the crime. She reviewed interior surveillance footage and saw that an unknown suspect had entered the home’s back door (which had not been locking properly recently) at 2 a.m. The suspect walked to the dining room, picked up four handbags (with a combined value in excess of $10,000) that had been on the dining room table, and left through the back door.
Detectives began investigating this case and thought that it may be connected to multiple prowling cases that were reported to police on Sunday, February 19. In those four cases, residents noticed the suspect on video footage hours after the incidents occurred. Those cases all occurred between 3 and 4 a.m. on February 19 at occupied residences in the 3800 block of Nathan Way, the 3500 block of Ross Road, and the 700 block of Christine Drive. The unknown suspect appears to enter side and rear yards via unlocked gates, then try to open doors of the homes.
Police distributed a news release about these cases on February 21, and released a surveillance image of the possible prowling suspect at the same time.
Since those incidents, patrol officers have been saturating residential neighborhoods. Through following a series of investigative leads, they were able to develop a possible suspect. Detectives obtained a search warrant for the possible suspect’s residence. On the afternoon of Thursday, March 2, officers and detectives served the search warrant at the residence in the 3100 block of Middlefield Road. Inside, they found the four handbags stolen from the burglary on Forest Avenue and located other evidence connecting the suspect to three of the four cases from the morning of February 19. Police arrested him without incident after they found the items.
Police booked 28-year-old Cristien Patrick Connors of Palo Alto into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for one count of residential burglary (for the Forest Avenue incident) and three counts of attempted residential burglary (for three of the incidents on February 19). All four counts are felonies. The suspect’s booking photo appears above.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call our 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text message or voice mail to (650) 383-8984.