by Donald Wood
Last updated: 11:59 AM ET, Mon January 22, 2018
A serial stowaway was caught once again last week, but not until after she boarded a flight to London without a ticket and traveled across the Atlantic Ocean.
According to the New York Post, 66-year-old Marilyn Hartman from Illinois has been caught trying to slip past Transportation Security Administration officers 10 times during her career as a stowaway.
Last Monday, Hartman was spotted on security footage wandering around O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Eventually, she found a group of people forming a line at the British Airways gate and snuck past attendants to board the plane.
Though Chicago police did not reveal how Hartman made it past TSA checkpoints to get to the gate, they did say she initially hid in the bathroom and then found an empty seat. Once authorities discovered she was onboard the flight without a ticket, they informed officials at Heathrow Airport a stowaway was on the incoming flight.
After the plane landed in England, police found Hartman and confirmed she didn't have a ticket or passport. She was sent back to Chicago where she was arrested on arrival Thursday. A TSA official revealed to the New York Post that Hartman went through a security checkpoint but managed to slip past officers without a ticket.
Hartman was arrested eight times in 2014 for similar attempts. She was also arrested in California and Arizona for being a stowaway and spent a year in jail before being released on probation to a nursing home in December 2015.
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