'Mugshot beauty' Sara Jane Ibister is now unrecognizable after turning her life around
A Florida woman who put the petty in pretty has spoken out about her infamy as the 'mugshot beauty' following a string of petty crimes.
Sara Jane Isbister is the bombshell American criminal who was first booked into Brevard County - located just east of Orlando - back in 2010, at the age of 21 for reckless driving and failure to pay a speeding fine.
Little did the arresting officers know that by placing the stunner in cuffs they were about to create a meme that would run for a further eight years.
It seems strange to describe someone's criminal affairs as a meme, but her model-like mugshots turned launched her in front of the public's eye.
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Yes, unfortunately for Isbister going viral meant her youthful mistakes were immediately broadcast for the world to see.
Now, the 34-year-old has totally overhauled her lifestyle. According to her LinkedIn profile, the former internet sensation is an award-winning visual artist and brand marketing specialist based in Indialantic, Florida.
Boasting over 10 years of customer care experience, she has successfully traded her troubled early twenties for a quiet, creative life.
Speaking about her string of arrests and internet notoriety, Isbister admitted she had no idea her actions would follow her forever.
Isbister told the Sun: “I was just so reckless. I just wanted to be the baddest of the baddest.”
But tabloids and edgy magazines had taken notice of her model-like mugshots, with even Perez Hilton poking fun at the pretty petty criminal.
And her run of criminality did not stop at her first run in with the law, with a string of more than a dozen equally photogenic pictures being taken of her for a variety of offences up until 2022, including parole violations and, in 2019, possession of a controlled substance.
A period of criminality and incredibly photogenic mugshots
Throughout this period of her early 20s, Isbister's internet infamy resulted on her being included in Maxim magazine's double page spread of 'The Bad Girl Club', which featured her face among a number of 'ridiculously photogenic' mugshots.
This notoriety led to each of her successive arrests being blasted across news websites and social media pages, which left her feeling overwhelmed and furious about what was happening to her.
Then people started inventing rumors about her criminal tendencies, including that she had murdered a house pet, which she said would have been 'humorous' if it wasn't so absurd.
Isbister said: “I was livid and upset. I had no idea how much this was going to screw things up for me. This is all people are going to know me for now. But then I kept doing stupid things.
"I didn’t realise people were going to string them together and make articles out of it."
Indeed, this notoriety took a darker turn when prison inmates started inundating the 'mugshot beauty' with fan mail. But unlike much of the discourse around her arrests, some of these were surprisingly kind.
She told the Sun: “There was one murder guy who was really cool to be honest.”
Her killer pen pal shared that she reminded him of his younger self, even advising her: “You don’t want to live this life while you’re young, just get out of it otherwise you’ll end up like me.”
She added that 'he was actually pretty nice and encouraging', but also said that most of the fan mail was actually pretty terrifying - including a 'juggalo' inmate and convicted killer who became obsessed with her while behind bars.
The 34-year-old also reflected on the circumstances that led to her string of arrests over the past 15 years, pointing to being a 'troubled teen' who associated with the wrong sorts of people and had issues that went into overdrive, especially when her father died shortly before her arrests, with Isbister calling him her 'best friend'.
A dark path of addiction and grief
This led her down a path that ended with her becoming addicted to drugs and eventually even selling them.
“All the problems in my life have stemmed from using drugs,” she said. “It’s never been anything good that has stemmed from that.”
She told the publication that she had taken a succession of jobs that made her feel numb to the world, starting at Hooters at 18 before serving tables and eventually stripping.
Isbister said: “When I was using drugs and stripping, the future was not the first thing I was thinking about. Every day is what’s going on right in front of me, which is a very dangerous way of living.”
What is Sara Jane Isbister doing now?
Now that she has put that world behind her, Isbister is pursuing a life as a writer and artist, which she regrets not focusing more on during her troubled years.
“My life is so far from that right now,” she said.
“I was raised with morals and values but I was just so edgy. Everything had to be more and more hard core.”
William Morgan