Most of the people I’ve shown in Mugshot March this year have funny or semi-humorous backstories, but not this guy.

John Aborn was a  real creep. I learned about him because a whole album of San Quentin mugshots that was believed to have been permanently lost was recently rediscovered. That album contained John Aborn’s mugshots.

Aborn was born in California but the exact year is not known. It has been variously recorded at 1863, 1864, and 1869.  We don’t know much about his early life except that he briefly enlisted to serve during the Spanish War in 1898.

On January 5, 1903, Aborn raped his young niece in San Jose, California. The girl was either 9 or 11 years old,  depending on the source. Aborn was arrested and taken to the Santa Clara County Jail.

1903 mugshot — Aborn

He was tried a few months later and convicted on April 17, 1903. The judge gave him a life sentence. He was moved to San Quentin prison on April 20, and remained there for at least seven years.  He filled out the 1910 census while still a prisoner there.

#20095 San Quentin intake photo

Aborn’s life sentence went by surprisingly quickly,  By 1920, he was out of prison and living in Humboldt County, California, as a free man.

Aborn died in 1933, when he was in his sixties.

John Aborn (1903)