Serial Stowaway Marilyn Hartman Arrested Once more – CBS Chicago

Chris Tye and Jeremy Ross of CBS 2 contributed to this report.

CHICAGO (CBS) – Just two days after we first heard her speak in an interview with CBS 2 investigator Brad Edwards, serial blind Marilyn Hartman was arrested again.

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Chicago police confirmed that 69-year-old Hartman was arrested by officers at O’Hare International Airport for a criminal offense.

A source told Edwards that Hartman’s anklet didn’t appear to ping initially – so she snuck out of custody at the West Side Halfway House, where sources said she lived.

NOW: Serial blind Marilyn Hartman arrested in O’Hare. Her anklet didn’t seem to ping initially – so she snuck back from custody. @cbschicago pic.twitter.com/Xbwg42cgIS

– Brad Edwards (@tvbrad) March 16, 2021

The Cook County sheriff’s office reported that investigators from the electronic surveillance unit tracked her movement using GPS on her anklet. The sheriff’s office was informed that Hartman had left the condominium and was looking for her immediately.

The sheriff’s office staff tried to contact Hartman using the phone built into her electronic monitor, but she did not answer. But they learned that she was on her way to O’Hare.

The sheriff’s office said they had informed Chicago police that Hartman was apparently escorted to the airport and was in the Terminal 1 area at 1:38 p.m.

According to a source, the Transportation Security Administration is so familiar with Hartman that they discovered them and notified law enforcement. She made it to Terminal 2 but got no further. Meanwhile, an alarm siren was activated on Hartman’s device and she was taken into custody, the sheriff’s office said.

Hartman was not entering safe areas, the sheriff’s office said.

The sheriff’s office plans to seek clearance on an escape charge against Hartman.

The authorities at A Safe Haven, the nonprofit home where Hartman lived, told CBS 2 that they had received no comment on Tuesday night about what exactly happened.

Hartman has been arrested several times at O’Hare International Airport.

Among other things, she was sentenced to 18 months probation in March after pleading guilty in March 2019 to sneaking past the security of Chicago Airport, boarding a plane and flying to London without a ticket the year before be.

She was arrested again in October 2019 after being discovered at Terminal 1, Checkpoint 2 in O’Hare, and attempted to get through security without a boarding pass or ID. By then, police said Hartman was on parole because of a previous incident and was banned from going to international airports in O’Hare or Midway without a boarding pass.

Audio recordings obtained from the CBS 2 Investigators reveal that an agent from the Transportation Security Administration discovered them again in O’Hare on October 10, 2019 and called the police.

“Marilyn sighted over here,” said a TSA agent.

The dispatcher then asked the agent, “Can you keep an eye on them for me?”

From Cook County Jail, she wrote that she wanted, “… to apologize … my mea culpa to law enforcement, including the TSA … it was not my intention to make their job any harder.”

Hartman was released from Cook County Jail in late March 2020 and was monitored at home after an attack in the prison and also after the coronavirus pandemic became a problem for inmates.

Law enforcement said the latest incident violated Hartman’s electronic surveillance regulations as a result of the latest attempt to poach a flight.

“I don’t think there’s rehabilitation in this particular case,” CBS 2 legal analyst Irv Miller told CBS 2’s Jeremy Ross.

Miller said Hartman was already facing a criminal offense for her previous crime, and Tuesday’s allegations could add another crime.

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Edwards spoke exclusively to Hartman starting October 2019 about a report that aired last Sunday evening. She told Edwards that she thought she had made at least 30 flights over the years.

CBS 2 investigators – using a variety of sources, requests for public records, reminders from Ms. Hartman, and more – created a forensic record of their free rides. She went to Jacksonville, Seattle, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Minneapolis, San Francisco and even London.

She said it started in 2002. Hartman recalled, “The first time I got through I flew to Copenhagen” and “The second time I flew to Paris”.

It wasn’t until about 12 years later that she appeared on law enforcement radar when she flew from San Jose to Los Angeles without a ticket on August 14, 2014. A judge then warned them don’t do it again.

Seven months later, in April 2015 in Jacksonville, she appeared in court, where her fate was sealed: “Ms. Hartman has been ruled incompetent by forensic psychologists to proceed. “

“I know they keep stressing mental illness … law enforcement … would like that. but um… (laughs) no, I’m pretty good, ”she said to Edwards.

Getting through it well.

According to law enforcement documents, Hartman was already on the “violations list” in January 2015. In April 2015, documents showed that she was known as a “serial stowaway”. In May 2015 it was seen as “… a high security risk”. And in July of this year: a “habitual stowaway”.

So how did she get away with taking so many flights for so long without a ticket or boarding pass?

“What I have to tell you. I’ve never been able to get on a plane alone. I was always let through, ”revealed Hartman. “I mean, I was able to pass the security line without a boarding pass.”

In January 2018, CBS2 investigators reported, Hartman escaped the security process and document / ticket review and flew to London on a British Airways plane for $ 3,428.

She had become ubiquitous at TSA checkpoints, her image at security checkpoints.

She described CBS 2 how she did it.

“I got past them, that’s what’s so crazy about following someone they’d carry like a blue bag,” she said. “And the next thing I know is I’ll get on the TSA line and TSA let me through and they think I’m with the guy with the blue bag.”

Hartman and why she took all these flights.

What motivated her to take the flights, Hartman said: “When I took the plane, I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t, ‘Oh, I’m going here or there’ – I was actually in a depressed state. ‘

Diagnosed as bipolar, it wasn’t a manic episode that triggered the flight trigger, it was the opposite. For two consecutive days in 2015, she admitted that she was so depressed that desperation caught her both times.

On a phone call from prison, Edwards asked Hartman if she was feeling a fight or a flight reaction and literally took a flight.

She replied, “It literally happened.”

She later talked about her sanity. “I am bipolar. And I’ve refused that for years. “

In connection with her arrest in 2019, a plea for Hartman had already been made, which should be concluded in early April, when all parties were back on trial. The judge had said Hartman would not get another parole.

“This is one too many,” said Miller.

Ross asked Miller if this incident could force the judge’s hand to ensure Hartman served the prison sentence.

“The judge was inclined to give her time in jail before this happened,” Miller said. “I suspect the judge will tend not to give a suspended sentence or a prison sentence a positive assessment.”

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If Hartman is charged with fleeing crime, he could face a court on Wednesday.