Marilyn Hartman, America's most prolific stowaway caught for 22 time

Hartman was arrested at Chicago O'hare Airport, attempring to board a plane without a ticket. Photo / Gary Meulemans, Unsplash

A 69-year-old woman was arrested again at Chicago's O'Hare Airport last week, attempting to board a plane without a ticket. It was her twenty-second such offence.

Marilyn Hartman's latest trespassing charge comes just two weeks after a court appearance relating to a previous attempt to stow away on a domestic flight. Her plea was rejected by a judge and was pending 18 months' probation from a previous stow-away attempt, plus court-ordered mental health treatment, according to Associated Press.

She was under observation by the Cook County authorities using electronic monitoring.

Hartman allegedly left the facility where she had been staying while on monitoring. The device allowed County sheriff's deputies to track her as she headed for O'Hare. Deputies activated an alarm on Hartman's device as she neared Terminal 1, where she was arrested.

Marylin Hartman, 69, is America's most prolific stowaway. Photo / AP, via Cook County Sheriff

The Chicago Tribune described Harman as a "serial stowaway" with 22 incidents across the country.

This would make her Chicago's – if not America's – most prolific stow away.

From accessing regional departure lounges with discarded tickets to attempting to board international flights, her earliest recorded incident is 15 from February 2014. She was interviewed by San Francisco Airport police before being released.

In February 2016, following Hartman's twelfth run in with airport police she appeared before a court after violating a judge's order to stay away from airports.

Judge William Raines handed the stowaway a suspended sentence with two years' mental health probation. The Chicago Tribute quoted the judge as saying: "Everybody has pretty much had it with you. You know, you're on TV all the time, and I believe that's really what you want."

Hartman, was arrested at O'Hare in October 2019 just as she was trying to pass the second of two security checkpoints, according to court records. She was released from Cook County Jail about a year ago in an effort to release low-risk detainees from contracting COVID-19.

The 2019 arrest violated her probation sentence for sneaking past O'Hare security in January 2018, boarding a jet and flying to London's Heathrow Airport without a ticket.

- With additional reporting by Associated Press