‘Serial Stowaway’ Marilyn Hartman Gets Early Jail Release Because of Coronavirus Pandemic
The airplane-hopping senior citizen was let out due to crowding concerns at the high-occupancy Chicago jail that now has more than 300 infected inmates.
By Jessie Schiewe
An aerial view of Chicago’s Cook County jail complex. (Flickr/David Wilson)
Coronavirus is lurking in the cells and floating down the hallways of America’s prisons and jails.
The disease is particularly prevalent at Chicago’s Cook County Jail. One of the largest pretrial detention centers in the nation, it houses roughly 6,000 inmates at any given time who live in close quarters and have little chance of social distancing. As is the case at most correctional facilities, hand sanitizer is also banned due to its alcohol content.
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, jails and prisons worldwide are particularly vulnerable to the contagion’s spread.
As Toni Preckwinkle, the president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, told The New York Times, they are literal “petri dishes” of mass infection.
Coronavirus hit the Cook County Jail particularly hard and fast.
For most of March, there were no cases.
Then, on Monday, March 23rd, two inmates tested positive.
Within 10 days, 134 more had it.
As of Sunday, April 12th, 306 inmates and more than 180 correctional officers, had coronavirus.
An off-site, 500-bed quarantine facility has since been established for Cook County Jail’s infected inmates, with separate areas for those who have the virus and for those who show symptoms but haven’t tested positive. Back at the jail, double cells have been converted to single cells when possible in an effort to increase space between those who have not yet caught it.
The most serious coronavirus patients are taken to the hospital, where currently 20 inmates are being treated. So far, coronavirus has killed three of them.
A handful of experts, including the Cook County Public Defender, knew this was coming.
By the middle of last month, before the Jail had even one coronavirus case, public defender Amy Campanelli had already filed an emergency motion with the state attorney’s office to secure early releases for inmates. Only those deemed low-risk were considered, which included the elderly, pregnant women, inmates with health problems, and those serving nonviolent offenses.
In all, Campanelli believed that as many as 2,000 inmates at the Cook County Jail fit this description. But on Friday, March 20th, after a week of hearings, only 100 were granted leave.
A 68-year-old inmate named Marilyn Hartman was one of those lucky ones.
Dubbed the “Serial Stowaway” by media outlets, Hartman became notorious in recent years for sneaking onto airplanes and catching free trips across the United States. Between 2014 and 2019, she did this on more than 20 commercial flights, making her way through airports and onto planes despite never having a boarding pass, passport, or proper form of identification.
Likely deemed non-suspicious by airport personnel due to her senior status, she used tactics like ducking under ropes, keeping her head down, piggybacking onto small groups, answering to others’ names, and using discarded boarding passes to finagle her way onto flights.
The apogee of her stowaway career happened on January 14, 2018, when she successfully snuck onto a plane departing from Chicago O'Hare International Airport to London Heathrow International Airport.
Hartman lived a homeless, peripatetic life for years. According to court records, her listed home address is a vacant lot in one of Chicago’s roughest neighborhoods.
Eventually Hartman’s crimes began catching up with her. The Guardian reports arrest records dating back to 2009 documenting her efforts to sneak aboard planes, but her shenanigans didn’t start making the news until 2014 when, over several months, she tried to sneak on to half a dozen planes at the San Francisco International Airport. More arrests, charges of trespassing and theft, probation sentences, psych evaluations, and lifetime bans from airports followed.
Nevertheless she persisted, until on October 11, 2019, Hartman was caught trespassing through security without a boarding pass or identification at O’Hare Airport. She was arrested and, for once, denied bail.
Hartman ended up behind these walls after years of racking up crimes. (Flickr/Chad K)
During her time at the Cook County Jail, Hartman — who believes in conspiracy theories, especially ones involving former President Barack Obama — underwent judge-ordered mental health exams.
She was also attacked — but not injured — by a fellow female inmate. According to The Chicago Sun Times, the woman was in the middle of “a mental health episode” when she “jumped up and started hitting Hartman and another incarcerated person.”
In all, the serial stowaway spent less than six months behind bars before she and the other low-risk inmates were granted their expedited releases in late March thanks to coronavirus outbreak concerns. Those hearings happened quietly and un-publicized in a separate courtroom, apart from the only two others that continue to remain in use despite widespread shutdowns. The inmates, including Hartman, weren’t even present in court due to fears that bussing them over could spread coronavirus.
The terms of Hartman’s release included a recognizance bond, which is when you are freed from jail without paying bail. She also signed a statement agreeing to return to court for her next hearing, which will happen at the end of April, presumably when courts are back in operation, The Chicago Tribune reports.
When Hartman was released on Friday, March 20th, she did not have coronavirus. In fact, at the time, nobody at the Cook County Jail had it. It wasn’t until two days after Hartman’s hearing that the first inmate tested positive for the disease. Now, more than 5% of the Jail’s population has it.
The 68-year-old, it would seem, managed to sneak out right in the nick of time — except this time, it was legal.
JESSIE SCHIEWE IS THE EDITOR OF OK WHATEVER. SHE BELIEVES IN MERMAIDS AND THRIFT SHOPS FOR EXERCISE.
More OK Whatever
