A 64-year-old homeless woman who has been dubbed a “serial stowaway” was arrested twice last month at a Chicago airport, authorities said on Tuesday.
In the last year, Marilyn Hartman has been arrested at least 10 times for accessing secure areas of airports in California, Minnesota, Arizona and now Illinois.
Hartman was arrested on 23 April as well as the following day, after being spotted at the O’Hare international airport with no reason to be in the restricted area. She was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass and ordered to appear in court on 29 May, officer Barri Lemmon of the Chicago police department told Reuters.
It is not yet clear how Hartman got to Chicago.
Most recently, she ran afoul of the law when on 8 February she boarded a Delta Airlines plane in Minneapolis-St Paul international airport in Minnesota and flew to Jacksonville international airport in Florida. How Hartman got on to the flight without a ticket is under investigation by the TSA, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
After her flight landed, she approached a transportation van for Omni Amelia Island Plantation resort and when asked by the driver if she was a person he was waiting for, said yes. Once at the resort, she allegedly checked in as yet another person – a guest checking in for a “Biggest Loser” weight loss show. The person showed up later, triggering a search for Hartman, who was then arrested on suspicion of an identity theft, defrauding an innkeeper and trespassing.
Hartman has no known family and has declined to fill out emergency contact information, Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County’s district attorney, told the San Francisco Chronicle. According to him, she has previously been caught trying to sneak on to airplanes or access secure airport areas in Oakland and Seattle. Over months, spanning from February to August of 2014, Hartman was detained at least 10 times, according to Mercury News.
On 4 August, she was able to sneak on to a flight at the Mineta San Jose international airport. She was arrested after the plane landed in Los Angeles and was sentenced to serve six months in jail, but due to overcrowding was released after three days. Weeks later, on 20 August and 26 August she was detained at a airport in Phoenix, Arizona. An unnamed source told the San Francisco Chronicle that Hartman “flew with a legitimate ticket to Phoenix on a Southwest flight out of San Diego on Aug. 20”.
Hartman, who has described herself as homeless in the past, told the media that she is drawn to airports because they are safer than streets.
“I would imagine she is not being delusional about being unsafe on the streets,” Steve Fields, executive director of the Progress Foundation, told San Francisco Chronicle. The Progress Foundation specializes in treating mentally ill homeless people. “Somewhere in all of this is a hook around the fear she has of being unsafe, especially as a woman who is homeless, and that is not uncommon. There should be a real conversation about that, and it could be very useful for figuring out what’s going on with her.”
The authorities cannot force Hartman to seek help, unless she is a threat to herself or the others.
San Mateo County previously arranged for Hartman to receive treatment at the Redwood City facility, but she checked herself after two days, said Wagstaffe.
“She didn’t like it. It has rules. She walked away.”
