A stowaway duped Chicago O’Hare ‘s International Airport security last week and was on a flight to London before the crew realized she did not have a boarding pass. Marilyn Hartman is known as the Bay Area’s Serial Stowaway because she has a history of attempting to board planes without a ticket. This time, she was halfway to London before she was discovered.
According to Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, 66-year old Hartman got through a federal Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at a domestic terminal. She then took a shuttle to the international terminal and within 24 hours, was on her way to London after boarding a British Airways flight.
This scenario will probably make most of us chuckle but the stories about her are simultaneously sad and compelling. She probably needs professional mental help but has refused to go to a treatment facility. So, she keeps doing the same thing and gets arrested repeatedly.
She has a long rap sheet
In 2015, Hartman tried to board a plane headed to Hawaii because she thought she had cancer and wanted to spend the remainder of her life there. She told Bay Area police, “All I wanted to do was go to Hawaii …. wanted to go to a warm place and die.” Later however, she revealed that she does not in fact have cancer and does not particularly like Hawaii, telling another cop when she was arrested for sneaking on a flight out of Hawaii that “she really wanted to get off the island.”
The only conclusion is that the infamous Serial Stowaway doesn’t really know where she is going or why. It appears as if she is a product of our society’s inability to deal with the mentally ill …. and yet, her antics are rather fascinating.
Chicago Police are charging Hartman with felony theft and criminal trespassing. She was flown back to Chicago Thursday and taken into police custody. Last year in Chicago, she was placed on two years of mental health probation and put on six months of house arrest.
[…] A judge had ordered the 66 year-old woman to stay away from O’Hare and Midway after she snuck past security and boarded a plane headed to London a few weeks ago. […]