A Florida mother recently experienced a chilling moment when she discovered her son was being tracked by an Apple AirTag. Jackie Giurleo was alerted to the presence of the tracking device after her family attended a Christmas parade in Satellite Beach. Upon returning home, her phone began to notify her of an AirTag in close proximity, seemingly following her seven-year-old son, Aidan.
“I’m always on the move,” Aidan shared with local news. The discovery of the AirTag was particularly alarming for Giurleo, as she didn’t own any such devices. The immediate assumption was that an unknown individual was tracking her son. “It was the worst fear of any mother,” she expressed.
In an attempt to locate the tracker, Giurleo searched through Aidan’s toys and clothing, eventually finding it hidden in the foam of his shoes. “When we found it, my heart sank. My knees buckled because it was inside my son’s shoe,” she recounted. The AirTag was concealed in a small cavity cut into the shoe’s foam.
Giurleo took the tracker to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office to file a report, prompting an investigation. The police issued a subpoena to Apple to obtain the address of the AirTag’s owner, leading them to the actual owner of the shoes.
In a surprising twist, it was revealed that Aidan had inadvertently swapped his shoes with another boy’s at the Christmas parade when they removed them to enter a bounce house. Aidan recalled noticing another boy with identical shoes. “I think we placed them in the same spot, and then we just swapped,” he explained.
The other family, hailing from Oklahoma, had inserted the tracker to keep tabs on their own child. Giurleo was taken aback to learn that AirTags could be used to monitor individuals. “We’ve never owned AirTags,” she stated. “I was aware of their use with luggage and keys, but I never considered them for tracking children.”
She expressed relief that the strange incident had a harmless explanation. “Fortunately, it turned into a happy coincidence of a story about two mothers,” she concluded. “We were truly fortunate to have a happy ending.”