Foot Model Scout

I usually just lurk around Reddit, posting a response here and there occasionally, so this is my first post on here. Please forgive any errors, as I am on mobile.

I was sheltered as a kid, I.e. raised a Jehovah’s Witness, home-schooled, deaf parents, so by the time I was 19 and moved out/left the church, I was a very naive person. When I look back on this situation, I always cringe and hate how naive I really was.

So about 14-15 years ago, I got a mall job at a well known video game store. One week day during the early afternoon, the store and mall were pretty much dead, so the only employee on the floor was myself.

So this short, black man with a tweed jacket and brown slacks walked in with a clipboard and made a beeline for me. His eyes looked “sleepy” and watery, I cannot explain it, but I instantly got the chills when we mad eye contact.

He said his name was Mark, he was scouting for a Macy’s footwear ad campaign, and was conducting a “survey” and looking for foot models, and would I be interested? He had a “portfolio” of Macy’s shoe ads that he claimed were his work, so I totally thought he was legit, and put aside the creepy feeling I got from looking in his eyes.

Like I said, I was naive and only 20, so I immediately jumped on it and told him that yes, I was interested. He asked if we could set up a meeting when I wasn’t working to conduct the survey and for him to look at my feet. Stupid me didn’t think that sounded creepy.

I wasn’t entirely stupid though, so I asked if we could arrange for him to meet me at work, in the store, in the back office when I would be the shift lead/keyholder the next day. No way was I going to let him meet me outside of the store, alone, or in my home.

He seemed disappointed, which I didn’t catch initially, but looking back, he was definitely a little “meh” about it. But, he agreed to meet me at the store the next day on my lunch break. Stupid me gave him my home phone number so he could call and confirm the appointment/ meeting.

He never called, but he showed up at the store around 11:30 the next morning, so I went ahead and took my lunch break.

We went to the back office, and my gut kept telling me something wasn’t quite right, but I continued on, because this guy had “proof” that he was legit.

He asked me to sit on the chair, take my shoes and socks off, he sat in a chair in front of me, and put them on his lap (!!!) so he could get a closer look for veins and other bullsh*t.

I should have made him stop and leave then, but I don’t know why I didn’t. He started to slowly rub my feet, and his watery eyes were looking up at the ceiling. I was getting really weirded out at this point, then he explained that he was seeing if massaging my foot would help with the appearance and make the blood flow plump them up. He then pulled out a pair of those nylon stocking socks that shoe stores have for you to try on shoes, and proceeded to put them on my foot. I was so petrified, creeped out, and speechless at this point, I didn’t move or say anything.

Then he was rubbing my foot with the nylon on and looking up at the ceiling with those watery, sleepy eyes, and I heard a little, muffled grunt or moan come from him. Then, I felt his erect genital rubbing on my foot. I jumped up, and that point, my co-worker had come to the back to check on me, and the guy jumped up, grabbed his stuff, and bolted out of the store.

My co-worker later told me that he got bad vibes from the guy, and had planned on coming back to check on me. I’m grateful for this.

Mark actually called me at my home (this was before cell phones) later that night and apologized, and that the work setting threw him off, and would have preferred if we could meet in a more personable setting. He sounded so unprofessional, “Hi, this is Mark, the guy with the survey.” when he called. I told him no, I’m not interested in foot modeling, and thanks anyway, then hung up.

It took me a couple of days to let it fully sink in that I was basically assaulted, this guy was not a Macy’s scout, never even conducted a survey, and was a foot fetishist.

I often wonder what would have happened if I had let him meet up with me outside of work. I kick myself and am embarrassed now for being so naive and gullible to believe this guy. I just brushed it under the rug to make myself forget about it until recently.

I never heard from him again. I recently decided to check through my state’s sex offender registry, but I didn’t see his picture. I will never forget his eyes and face, ever.

I want to know if he is in jail, if he did anything worse than what happened with me, etc.

So Mark, The Guy with the Survey, let’s not meet ever again.

UPDATE: I found the man! He was arrested and charged with abducting 2 women while posing as a cab driver! I decided to check for keywords like “foot fetishist arrest” in my state and found him.

Here are the links. Seeing his photo made me have a panic attack, since this happened back in 2000-2001, and this is the first time I’ve seen his face and watery-sleepy eyes since that time.

The Sicko

The link to the incident isn’t working, so I will copy and paste the text.

“Foot Fetish Gets Kentucky Cab Driver Arrested News Edition: 06/08/2005

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A Kentucky cab driver with a "major foot fetish" apparently has taken things a step too far, police said. Martin Phillip Jackson is accused of kidnapping a woman over the weekend with the intent of photographing her feet, Louisville television station WLKY reported Monday.

Jackson, 39, was arrested Sunday and will be arraigned Tuesday.

Since the boyfriend of the alleged victim reported her missing, the Metro Police Crimes Against Children Unit is leading the investigation, and detectives said they think there are more women out there who've suffered at Jackson's expense.

Early Sunday morning, the woman and her friend were leaving a downtown Louisville nightspot and got into what they thought was a legitimate taxi, but at the first stop, that's when things became fishy, CACU Capt. Don Burbrink said.

"The one girl got out and she said, 'I thought it was kind of weird that the meter wasn't running, and when I asked him how much,' he goes, 'It's on me,' and 'I just thought that was strange.'"

It got stranger for the other woman, who, police said, was taken to Jackson's apartment in suburban St. Matthews. That's where the suspect stripped the woman down to her bra and panties, forced her to put on knee-highs, bound and blindfolded her and then took pictures of her.

"He kissed her feet, and he fondled her feet, but he never went above the kneecap," Burbrink said. "And as fas as she knows, he never masturbated or anything else."

Jackson also made up a story to explain the bizarre circumstances, Burbrink said.

"He kept telling her that there were other people in the apartment that were watching her, so she shouldn't try to escape," he said. "And he was doing this because there were other people who had his family kidnapped and that they were making him do this."

But escape is exactly what the woman did after Jackson unsuccessfully tried to use Pine Sol to knock her out, WLKY reported. The woman untied herself, then escaped while Jackson was sleeping, Burbrink said.

Later that afternoon, neighbor Lyle Frazier got a knock on his door when the woman and police came to the neighborhood to investigate.

"She was holding the stockings that she had been tied with," Frazier said. "I think she wanted to get rid of them, but police told her to keep them because they needed that as evidence."

After Frazier gave police some information about Jackson's other car, investigators tracked him down at a restaurant nearby, WLKY reported.

And once they got a search warrant, they found more than 100 pair of packaged pantyhose, computers and digital cameras.

"They only looked really through one camera, my understanding, as it was explained to me," Burbrink said. "And there's what -- 25, 50 pictures on those digitals, and there's probably 10 to 15 girls on those."