Florida mom finds unknown AirTag in her son's shoe: 'Every mother's worst nightmare'

SATELLITE BEACH, Fla. - An AirTag causes cross-country chaos after a mom thought her son was being tracked by a stranger. 

Jackie Giurleo didn’t own any air tags but found one hidden in her 7-year-old son’s shoe. She immediately got the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office involved, but what could have been a crime turned into an innocent coincidence.

The ordeal started months ago at a Christmas parade on Jackson Avenue in Satellite Beach. After attending the event, Jackie started getting alerts about an AirTag nearby, which started the months-long investigation to figure out why and how her son was being followed.

"I go a lot of places," said 7-year-old Aidan Giurleo who had the AirTag in his shoes and never felt it. 

His mom ended up seeing all the places her son had been after the parade because a map of his location popped up on her phone as an undetected AirTag alert. The big issue with that - his mom didn't own anything that was supposed to be tracking her son!

"It was every mother’s worst nightmare," said Jackie. 

She needed to figure out why someone was seeing her son's location in real time and where was the AirTag fast. Jackie searched all of her son's clothes, toys, everything trying to find where the tracker was. 

"When we found it, my heart just dropped. Honestly, my knees gave out because it was inside my son’s shoe," said the mom. 

Hidden in the sole was a quarter-sized hole holding the mystery AirTag that had been tracking her son for nearly a month. 

Jackie panicked and went right to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office to file a report.

Deputies went to work, and a detailed report shows the sheriff's office subpoenaed Apple to get the address of who owned the AirTag. 

"Luckily, it just turned into a happy coincidence of a tale of two moms," said Jackie. 

A case of two moms and two sons who swapped shoes. The kids' shoes ended up on the wrong feet after jumping around a bounce house at the Christmas parade.

"I can remember that I saw one of the kids had the same shoes as me, and I think we put them in the same places, and then we just swapped," added Aidan. 

Here’s exactly what happened: Aidan accidentally put on another kid’s shoes after getting out of the bounce house! That other kid was here on vacation but actually lives in Oklahoma.  

His family owns the AirTags inside the shoes, and they were meant to track their own kid. It turns out they were the ones "tracking" Aidan but had no clue why or how. 

Aiden’s mom was floored and even learned something new about the power of AirTags.

 "We have never had AirTags," she said. "I knew about them with luggage and keys and things like that. I never thought about them when it came to tracking your kids. 

All this mom feels now is a relief, knowing her son is safe, and the AirTag mystery wasn’t a crime -- just two boys who accidentally put on the wrong shoes. 

"I took his, and he took mine," said Aidan. 

"We were really lucky that we had a happy ending," concluded Jackie. 

After all this, Jackie thinks AirTags could be a genius investment for theme parks or other activities because the tags will always be right on them, and her son didn’t even know it was there. All in all, she says she learned more than she lost during this crazy ordeal.