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Woman accused of killing boyfriend after tracking him down with Apple AirTag

New meaning for accessory to murder

A woman in the US has been charged with murder after she allegedly tracked down her boyfriend using an Apple AirTag and ran him over after seeing him with another lady.

Gaylyn Morris, 26, found her partner Andre Smith, also 26, at Tilly’s Pub in an Indianapolis shopping mall with the help of the gadget in the early hours of June 3, it is claimed.

A witness said Morris had driven up to him in the parking lot and inquired whether Smith was in the bar, stating she had a GPS tracker that showed he was inside, according to an affidavit [PDF] by Detective Gregory Shue. Morris, the witness said, subsequently spotted Smith within the establishment.

The witness went into the bar and saw Morris, Smith, and a female companion get into an altercation. The witness took two videos of the fight and provided them to police.

Morris, according to the account of a second witness, seized a beer bottle and swung at Smith's companion, but Smith intervened. The bar owner then asked the three to leave.

According to other witnesses' accounts in the affidavit, Morris stated she had used an Apple AirTag to locate Smith.

Morris, according to the affidavit, then left, got in her car, and drove away. When Smith went outside, Morris had pulled up outside the Metro Diner just to the east of Tilly's and drove up on the sidewalk at Smith, running him over, it is claimed.

After Morris backed up over her boyfriend and off the sidewalk, as the affidavit put it, one of the witnesses tried to step in front of the car to protect Smith but Morris allegedly drove around the witness, striking him in the left hip with her car's mirror then running over Smith and dragging him.

A registered nurse who tried to intervene "could not perform CPR because Smith’s body was completely under the car between the front wheels with his head on the driver's side behind the front wheel and his feet were at the passenger side front wheel," the affidavit stated.

When the cops arrived, they found Smith beneath a dark blue 2010 Chevrolet Impala registered to Morris. He was pronounced dead at 0056 at the scene.

Questioned by police, Morris is said to have initially denied that she had used an AirTag to track Smith. When asked if a search warrant were served, would a tracker be found on Smith's car, Morris, according to the affidavit, admitted placing the Apple wireless tracker in the backseat of Smith's vehicle near a cup holder.

A search warrant for Morris's Chevy Impala led to the recovery of an "Apple AirTag packaging box." And Smith was carrying an Apple iPhone.

In an interview with WNDY-TV in Marion, Indiana, Smith's aunt Reneka Day said, "Those tracking devices should not be used by the public. They should not be available to the public. They should only be used for hospitals and law."

Last month, NBC10 Boston reported identifying at least two dozen cases in the Greater Boston area in which phone alerts were triggered as a result of Apple AirTag tracking. And eight of those cases police reports were not released because the cases involved domestic violence.

Apple in February announced that it is taking steps to modify its AirTags to make them less useful for stalking and condemned the misuse of its hardware.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment. ®

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