A petty criminal who rose to infamy as the 'mugshot beauty', after a string of arrests resulted in crazily photogenic booking pictures, has finally spoken out after her viral notoriety.
Florida resident Sara Jane Isbister was just 21 when she first fell afoul of the law, with police in Brevard County putting her in cuffs over a reckless driving charge and failure to pay a speeding fine. But the model-like mugshot they took would turn her life upside down.
Nowadays, such a devastating 'face card' would lead to Isbister being praised for 'looksmaxxing' and 'mogging', or even just 'serving', but back in the simpler times of 2010, people were just blown away that she was able to hit such a stunning pose while in police custody.
However, this led to her personal life and previous mistakes being splashed on magazines and newspapers for the world to see. Speaking about her infamy and arrests now, 34-year-old Isbister has said she 'didn’t realise there were real consequences at that age.'
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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.
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 imprisoned follower of the Insane Clown Posse subculture sent the young woman increasingly disturbing letters, including a threat that she had 'better be ready to go with him' when he was released - or he would become a repeat offender.
Isbister shared: “He wrote at least five letters to me and then he would get really angry at me when I didn’t write him back. He was a creep and a weirdo.
“It was scary because these people were sending the mail to my home, so they knew where I lived.”
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. Issues that went into overdrive when her father died shortly before her arrests, with Isbister calling him her 'best friend'.
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.”
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