Serial Stowaway Arrested At O'Hare. Again!

By Mae Rice in News on Feb 18, 2016 4:15PM

A 64-year-old woman, widely known as the "serial stowaway," was arrested for trespassing at O'Hare International Airport on Wednesday afternoon.

Marilyn Hartman was charged with a felony count of violating probation and a misdemeanor count of trespassing on state land, police told reporters. She's scheduled to appear in bond court today.

This is Hartman’s roughly one millionth offense of this nature. As you can see above, Hartman is old and white—which makes sense, because officials would not let any other demographic so repeatedly get away with irregular airport behavior.

Hartman has been stowing away, or at least attempting to, very repeatedly.

She has tried to sneak past security at multiple American airports, not just Chicago's. She's successfully stowed away on at least two flights, too: one from San Francisco to Honolulu in February of 2014, and another from San Jose to Los Angeles in August 2014.

More often, though, Hartman's stowaway attempts fail. In July, she was arrested twice in less than 48 hours—at Midway Airport, then again the next day at O’Hare—immediately after getting released from jail for a similar offense.

At Midway on July 3, she was arrested on a flight even though she had a ticket.

NBC reported:

Police said Hartman actually walked up to an officer at Midway last Friday and introduced herself, declaring, “Do you know who I am? I’m a celebrity!” As they watched, she bought a plane ticket at Midway, and was escorted to the gate by Chicago Police.

But after boarding the aircraft, Hartman reportedly stood up and began ranting to her fellow passengers that “they’re in a war,” and that she didn’t feel safe without a helmet. The captain of the New York bound flight returned to the gate, and she was escorted off the plane.

After that incident, her court-ordered psychiatric exam deemed her “mentally fit with medication,” according to NBC.