Written by Clarence Walker Jr.
Technology is as powerful as a bolt of lightning and as quick as blinking an eye. Apple Air Tag is a Bluetooth tracking device that has become a popular tool to track missing personal items like keys, backpacks, briefcases, wallets, laptops, cellphones, or any personal item that needs tracking.
Two years ago, the coat-button-size Air Tag was released for sale by Apple’s crowdsourced app using the feature “Find My Network” to locate items.
“Find My Network” Air Tags are estimated at around 1 billion devices in use worldwide. To use the Tag, a person must own an iOS 14.5, iPad iOS 14.5, or newer. Air Tags assist in finding a lost item by showing a map of the location or by playing a sound. If a person owns an iPhone 11 or later, you can locate the Air Tag with Precision Finding, which usually leads a person to their Air Tag.
Air Tags are invaluable for what they’re created to do. But there’s a dangerous hook with Air Tags. How? The biggest threat is once these gadgets fall into the dirty hands of stalkers and thieves, they use Air Tags to commit crimes against potential victims. There have been at least two homicides reported as a result of the killers using Apple’s Air Tag to locate the person they murdered.
According to Fox News, a Vice Media investigation showed that out of a total of 150 police reports that mentioned Air Tags from eight police departments over an 8-month period, there were at least 50 cases in which women contacted police because they got notifications that they were being tracked by an Air Tag they didn’t own.
“Of those, the media outlet reported, 25 could identify a man in their lives; ex-partners, husbands, bosses whom they strongly suspected planted the Air Tags on their cars in order to follow and harass them,” Vice Media reported.
In the Alamo city of San Antonio, Texas, a homeowner discovered his Chevy Silverado truck stolen from his driveway. Unfortunately for the thief, the owner had placed an Air Tag in his truck. San Antonio Police said the owner called 911 after discovering his truck stolen from his northside residence.
Assisted by relatives, the complainant, utilizing Air Tag features, tracked the vehicle to a shopping center 20 miles away where he confronted 44-year-old Andrew John Herrera sitting inside the vehicle. Profanity-laced words were exchanged between the owner and the thief, then the rightful owner of the truck shot Herrera to death. The shooter said he shot Herrera because he was reaching for a weapon. No decision has been made on whether the truck owner will be charged with a homicide offense.
Lawsuit Filed Against Apple
Meanwhile, two women filed lawsuits against Apple claiming their previous romantic significant other used the company’s Air Tag device to track their whereabouts, which jeopardized their safety.
The proposed class action lawsuit was filed in December in San Francisco’s U.S. Northern District Federal Court in California on behalf of a Travis County, Texas woman identified as Lauren Hughes and the second woman is from New York. Ms. Hughes discovered she was being stalked by an Air Tag in August 2021, after the breakup of a three-month relationship with a boyfriend refusing to move on with his life. The ex-boyfriend also left threatening voicemail messages and wrote derogatory messages on Hughes’s social media accounts.
The second plaintiff from Brooklyn, referred to as Jane Doe in the court papers stated in her lawsuit she found an Air Tag in her child’s backpack last summer after a nasty divorce. The lawsuit further explained that the stalker had “a commitment to continuing to use Air Tags to track, harass, and threaten her.”
Lauren Hughes said her ex-boyfriend allegedly placed an Air Tag into the ‘wheel well’ of a tire on her car. He had taken steps to hide the small Air Tag by coloring it with a marker and tying it inside a plastic bag. Both lawsuits accuse Apple of failing to introduce effective safeguards to prevent stalkers from using Air Tags to track people.
“With a price of just $29, it has become the weapon of choice for stalkers and abusers”, the written verbiage in the lawsuit said.
Apple legal officials haven’t responded to many requests for comment. News media outlets reported the company made changes to the product following an avalanche of complaints, saying, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products.”
Both plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages.
News Reports Show Tracking Devices Are Perfect for Stalkers
This past December, 63-year-old Carl Steven Shawver, of Bettendorf, Iowa, was arrested and charged with stalking after evidence showed he used an unauthorized GPS to track a woman. According to court records, on December 5, the victim discovered an Apple Air Tag sitting on top of a tire on her car. The woman’s phone alerted her she was being tracked.
A West Des Moine Police Officer retrieved the Air Tag and placed it into evidence at the station. The following day Shawver visited the Police Station to see if his female obsession was there. He claimed the woman was married to him, and that he placed the Air Tag on the woman’s car due to believing she was having an affair at the police department.
Unwilling to give up, Shawver attached another Air Tag, and again the woman’s phone notified her that her movements were being tracked. An officer located the tag in a wallet encased in a plastic sandwich bag sitting on top of a tire. The victim thought she had eliminated all the tags, then suddenly, she received a notification that she was being tracked, again.
A mechanic lifted the vehicle onto a ramp and discovered another Air Tag on the subframe of the vehicle near the front passenger tire wrapped in a plastic case.
When police arrested Shawver he insisted they were married. Evidence proved the couple never had a relationship and that the woman blocked Shawver’s number from calling and texting her.
Carl Sawver entered into a plea deal with prosecutors. In return for pleading guilty to multiple charges of stalking, FOX News reports he is expected to receive an 11-year suspended sentence, although this deal has still to be approved by a Judge.
An Indianapolis WRTV investigation recently uncovered how stalkers used Apple’s AirTags to track women.
“He came on like a freight train, It was constant. Coming over, following, coming after me and my family and anybody around me. The police found a little GPS on the back of my car. I had no idea it was there. It was terrifying, and life-altering.” – Dawn Hillyer
According to WRTV, Dawn Hillyer was tormented for six years by a stalker, who followed her and always seemed to know exactly where she would be. In 2012, her stalker was convicted and sentenced to a 10-year prison term.
Air Tag Stalking Leads to Death
During early morning hours on Friday, June 3, 2022, around 12:32 a.m., Gaylyn Morris, 26, drove to an Indianapolis pub called Tilly’s located at 3948 East 82nd Street where she entered the place and spotted her boyfriend, Andre Smith, also 26, with another woman.
Morris attempted to strike Smith’s new lover with a Michelob beer bottle, but Smith stepped between the two women, preventing an assault on the woman he was with.
Realizing more commotion in the place could disrupt customers and force them to leave, the bartender asked Smith, Morris, and the other young lady with Smith to leave. Once outside, witnesses said Morris entered her vehicle and drove onto the sidewalk where Smith and the lady were standing.
When the vehicle struck Morris his body was under the car; his head had been run over by the tire on the driver’s side. A registered nurse hurried to try and rescue Smith. She later told Detective Gregory Shue, “His eyes were open, he was breathing through his mouth, and when I checked his carotid pulse, it was weak and slow.”
Andre Smith aka Dre died from his injuries.
Smith’s female companion told Detective Gray that while the couple was in Tilly’s, Smith said he thought there was a GPS on his car because Morris was texting him saying she knew where he was at.
Gaylyn Morris, Smith’s girlfriend who used her 2010 Impala vehicle to run him over causing his death was charged with murder. A witness in Tilly’s parking lot said Morris told him she knew Smith was in the place because she had tracked him using the Air Tag. She also confessed to police she’d used an Apple Air Tag to track Smith to the location where she killed him.
““It’s mind-boggling, and it’s creepy,” Reneka Day, Andre’s aunt, told WRTV in Indianapolis. “She shouldn’t have been able to find him at all.” Day insisted Apple Air Tags and other tracking devices shouldn’t be for sale to the general public.
Murder in Ohio
31-year-old Heidi Moon from Akron, Ohio, had been terrorized by her former obsessive boyfriend Nick Mima, 39. Mima had executed an ongoing scheme of stalking and harassment against Heidi. Once when she stayed at a hotel on January 30, 2022, Mima texted her, saying he knew where she was. He went on to tell her the exact Portage County address of the hotel she was staying at.
Moon hired David Oliver’s private investigation service to conduct a level-1 sweep for tracking devices on her car. During the sweep, Oliver discovered an Apple Air Tag tracker in the back pocket of the front passenger seat.
“I had every reason to believe that Mima had placed it there,” Oliver told News 5. “He had contacted her with the location of the hotel she was at the night before and that’s highly unusual.” Oliver insisted Moon file a police report against Mima.
She never filed one, thinking the situation may get worse.
In one particular text, Heidi told relatives that Mima said, “You’re lucky I don’t put a bullet in your b….ass.”
Heidi Moon was frightened of Mima and what he might do next.
On January 31, the day after Mima told Moon he knew she was at a hotel, he hid inside her home. When she arrived home, he walked her outside and shot her dead before he turned the gun on himself. He died a day later.
Heidi Moon’s family was devastated. They hope Heidi’s story might encourage other people who believe they are being stalked to seek help. “There are ways to get out – ways to get help. Don’t end up like my sister – murdered in your own driveway.” Heidi’s sister, Teresa Gajkowski told The Akron Beacon Journal.
A Stalker’s Psyche
People stalk people.
Such behavior is a common occurrence. Stalking is strange and energized criminal behavior, a behavior that at some point can explode into rage. A stalker’s M.O. is to watch and follow, repeatedly harass, and threaten a targeted person. In many situations, stalking turned deadly.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), reports that approximately 1 in 6 women and 1 in 7 men will experience stalking during their lifetime.
“People stalk because they want something from the victim—an apology, a relationship, sex, or fear,” said Clinical and Forensic Psychology expert Troy McEwan, in a Discover Magazine article, written by Eric Taipale.
Taipale focused on the challenging aspect of understanding the psychology behind stalking, including the consistent behaviors that provide insight into the mind of a stalker.
Taipale further writes, “Behavioral issues found in stalkers are sometimes indicators of underlying mental disorders. Those who commit stalking are more likely than the general population to have certain personality disorders that display unpredictable behavior, such as borderline and narcissistic personality disorder,{having} a disregard for others feelings.”
Stalking is nonetheless destructive in nature. Without proper treatment administered to the person who engages in this perilous behavior, the results can cause imminent danger to others.
Conclusion
As stated, Apple claims to have added more safeguards to the Air Tag to eliminate unwanted tracking. Executives said they have worked with safety groups and law enforcement to identify more ways to update its Airtag safety warnings, including alerting people sooner and louder if the small Bluetooth tracker is suspected to be tracking someone.
Overall, none of the protective measures undertaken by Apple has soothed the plaintiffs currently suing them, “While Apple has built safeguards into the Air Tag product, they are woefully inadequate, and do little, if anything, to promptly warn individuals if they are being tracked,” the lawsuit said.
True Crime Contributing Reporter Clarence Walker can be reached at: [email protected]
Each Accused Defendant Mentioned in This Story Facing Criminal Charges Is Presumed Innocent Until Proven Guilty in a Court of Law.
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