Jan. 20 (UPI) — A “serial stowaway” was arrested after flying from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport, authorities said.
Chicago police said Marilyn Hartman, 66, of Grayslake, Ill., apparently got through airport security without a boarding pass or passport Sunday, flew to the London airport and was detained by British Customs officials when she landed Monday morning.
According to a release Friday, Hartman was sent back to Chicago and landed at O’Hare on Thursday.
Charges include felony theft and misdemeanor criminal trespassing.
Investigators told WMAQ-TV that they believe she spent close to 24 hours inside O’Hare’s Terminal 5, made it past security and boarded the British Airways flight.
Airline personnel realized she did not belong on the flight and didn’t have a passport.
Hartman has been arrested several times on charges she attempted to or successfully boarded flights, with the most recent instance in 2016. In that case, Hartman was given probation after pleading guilty in a February 2016 trespassing charge. She was sentenced to 364 days in jail a few weeks later, according to court records.
At the time, Hartman had been living at a mental health facility in Chicago.
In a court filing after her arrest in July 2015 at O’Hare on trespass charges, Cook County prosecutors described Hartman as a “serial stowaway.”
She attempted to board a plane at Chicago’s Midway Field without a ticket, prosecutors said.
In 2014 she was arrested three times. That includes after reportedly flying from San Jose, Calif., to Los Angeles without a ticket and in Phoenix.
