09/03/2026
At 18, Matthew Medlin's first booking photo looked almost ordinary.
Years later, the man staring back from his mugshots was almost unrecognizable — heavy facial tattoos, injuries, and a growing record of arrests.
But the photographs are only part of the story.
In 2014, Medlin did something almost impossible to understand: he escaped from prison with only SIX DAYS left before his scheduled release.
He was captured hours later at a Portland fast-food restaurant.
Then came a four-hour rail-yard standoff, drug use, attempts to connect him with mental-health treatment and stable housing — and still more arrests.
By 2020, reports said he'd been booked into Portland-area jails at least 29 times.
So what really happened between that first photograph and the images that later went viral?
The full story is far more complicated than the mugshots suggest.
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