Serial stowaway has history of trespassing at MSP airport

Marilyn Hartman, the woman notorious for hopping on flights across the country, has had quite a history of trespassing at Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport. At times, just to find a warm place to sleep.

Hartman struggles with depression and mental illness, and has spent months living in homeless shelters in Minneapolis. Along with that, she was also making trips out to the airport -- to hang out, to stay warm, and allegedly trying to get past security.

The day after last Thanksgiving, she was caught lurking around MSP airport. In a photo, she's holding a no trespass warning that she had to sign… Not that it would do much good.

According to the police report, Hartman claimed her purse was stolen from an airport restroom, that she was living at a homeless shelter in Minneapolis, that the library was closed, and that she was bored and looking for a place to read, so she chose the airport.

But a month later, Hartman was back. On Jan. 9 she attempted to get through a security checkpoint without a boarding pass. After a TSA agent turned her away, airport police found her 90 minutes later upstairs on the mezzanine level, sleeping in a chair.

Hartman told police again that she was homeless, and the shelters were full, and she was looking for a warm place to sleep and thought she'd be more comfortable on the secure side of the airport. This time, she was arrested for trespassing, and paid a 78-dollar fine.

Hartman claimed she came back a third time last Sunday, this time getting through security without a ticket or boarding passing, and sneaking aboard a flight to Jacksonville, Florida.

Her obsession with the nation's airports is by now well established. The serial stowaway boarded flights last year without a ticket in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.

Hartman's logic is strange, but she makes an interesting point. If TSA can't find a way to keep a 63-year-old lady from sneaking aboard planes, how do we know they can stop those with more sinister intentions?

Hartman trespassed a half-dozen times in San Francisco and San Jose last year before she was finally successful in getting on a plane. She told police in San Jose that she gets past the TSA checkpoints by blending in with a large family or a big group. And then does the same thing at the gate.

Airports around the entire country have her mug shot, and have been on the lookout.