OKC Navy Veteran’s One-Of-A-Kind Painting Stolen By Porch Pirate

A quick porch pirate took a painting this week, which a metro homeowner calls one-of-a-kind. Police believe the thief may have been following a delivery truck.

Earl Faubion says the man snatched his package from the front porch before he could even reach the front door. While the painting the man stole was not worth much monetarily, Faubion says its sentimental value is priceless.

Slowed down by a knee injury, it took Faubion a few minutes to make his way to the door when the UPS man stopped by.

“Getting my crutches, the Ring.com went off again,” he says, “and I looked and there was a red car running the stop sign. I thought, uh oh, something’s not right.”

He had missed the portion of the video showing the man running across his lawn to grab the large box on his porch.

By the time Faubion got outside, his neighbor was running towards the house. The neighbor had seen the car's license plate, EEH 257, which police confirm is registered to the 1997 red Thunderbird seen in the video.

Faubion says inside the stolen box was a painting of a World War II-era destroyer, the USS Fletcher, sent to him by the daughter of another Navy vet.

“I served on it in Vietnam,” he explains. “He served on it in the war with Japanese, and it was a one-of-a-kind painting that he had had. He died a few months ago and she was passing it on to me.”

Faubion spent 31 months on the ship until it was decommissioned, during which he says he morphed from a farm boy into a man.

“We were runnin’ and gunnin’ as David Payne likes to say!”

The adrenaline rush had him hooked. Faubion went on to serve as an Oklahoma City police officer and now navigates the roads as a News 9 Storm Tracker with Alan Broerse. He hopes to track down the thief.

“My first thought is let’s catch this perp,” Faubion says. “That, and I want to see him punished.”

He is also watching Craigslist and other sales sites for his stolen painting, but sadly, he is not too optimistic. If you see the painting or have any information about the suspect, please call Crime Stoppers at 405-235-7300.