It reads like the setup for a bad joke, except the injuries are real and the story is stranger than fiction. Police in South Florida say a man ran over a woman with his SUV after she refused to let him smell her feet.
The encounter began innocently enough — or as innocently as a transaction arranged on a dating app can be. According to investigators, 28-year-old Elmoncy Sercle met the woman on the app Seeking and invited her to the Serena Hotel in Aventura, about 20 miles north of Miami. The woman told Local 10 News that she had agreed to sell Sercle a pair of used sneakers. But what unfolded next veered from awkward to dangerous.
“When I got there, he just wanted to sniff my feet and I didn’t feel comfortable with that,” she said. “I mean, you could have my sneakers all you want. I don’t care. They’re just stinky old sneakers. But people like weird things.”
The woman said she tried to set a boundary, telling Sercle that if he wanted that experience, it would cost him $1,000 — the rate she charges as a foot model. Then she excused herself to grab the shoes from her car. That’s when, according to police, Sercle bolted from the room. Believing he had stolen her belongings, she chased him to the hotel’s parking garage.
What happened next was surreal. Police say Sercle climbed into a red Mercedes SUV, pointed it in her direction, and accelerated. He stopped, made a three-point turn, then struck her with the vehicle. The woman was left with road rash and bruising on her back, arms, and chest, injuries serious enough to require immediate medical care.
She called the ordeal “extremely bizarre,” adding, “By the grace of God, I’m still standing today. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I’ve met a lot of people who have foot fetishes, obviously, and nobody has ever done anything to this caliber.”
Sercle fled the garage but was later arrested and charged with aggravated battery. He has since bonded out of jail and is scheduled to appear in court on September 29.
The case might sound absurd, but detectives say it fits a troubling pattern. Court records show Sercle has multiple open cases in Miami-Dade County involving women he allegedly met on dating apps, lured to hotels, and then robbed.
For the woman in Aventura, the bizarre request about feet was just the start of a nightmare. “It was scary,” she said, still processing the encounter. And while the story is unusual, the danger she faced is clear — and very real.
