Terrifying new details have emerged about a chilling plot to kidnap, castrate, and murder Justin Bieber at the height of his fame, orchestrated by a jailed killer obsessed with the pop star.
Dana Martin - who was serving two life sentences for the 2000 rape and murder of 15-year-old DeAndra Florucci - had masterminded the gruesome plan from behind bars at a prison in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
The convicted killer even had a tattoo of Bieber on his leg and had made multiple unsuccessful attempts to contact the singer by sending him handwritten letters.
Speaking on Investigation Discovery’s new docuseries Hollywood Demons in the episode 'Stalking the Stars', former corrections officer Edgar Pinon shared his disturbing interactions with Martin.
“One morning, he wanted to talk to me personally, in private. Right away, he started talking about his tattoo of Justin Bieber,” Pinon said, per Entertainment Weekly.
“He went on and on about how he's been trying to make contact with Justin,” Pinon continued. “That's when he started telling us a story. He had arranged for two individuals to travel to the East Coast, and he gave them a hit list.”
According to Pinon, Martin recruited Mark Staake, whom he met in prison, and Staake’s nephew Tanner Ruane, to help carry out the plot. The plan involved killing a couple in Vermont, before traveling to New York to abduct Bieber and his bodyguard while the singer was scheduled to perform at Madison Square Garden on November 28, 2012.
However, the grisly plan unraveled when Staake and Ruane were caught by U.S. Border Patrol officers on November 19, 2012, after taking a wrong turn and ending up in Canada.
During a search of their vehicle, authorities discovered shears and neckties — “the tools necessary to commit the crimes,” Pinon said.
In a taped interrogation, Martin admitted: "There's these people that I wanted to get killed. What we wanted to do for possible notoriety which was, you know, kidnapping him. The point of this whole thing was killing Justin Bieber", per the Daily Mail.
He added: "I'm a nobody in prison. I want Justin Bieber to know who I am. It's crazy, isn't it?"
Martin had allegedly planned to personally carry out the castration using handheld hedge clippers.
Despite the severity of the plan, Pinon believes that Martin’s ultimate goal was not Bieber’s death. "In my opinion, I don't think Dana actually wanted to murder Justin Bieber," Pinon explained. "Because if he does, he can't get no more music from him, no more news of what's going on with him.
"My impression is Dana wanted Justin Bieber to know who he was, he wanted him to say, 'Hey, I am here, I am a huge fan.'"
Following their arrests, Staake and Ruane were convicted on conspiracy charges. In 2015, Staake was sentenced to nine years in prison for two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, with another nine years to be served concurrently. Ruane had been similarly convicted in 2014. Meanwhile, Martin was transferred to the maximum-security New Mexico State Penitentiary in 2013 and later bragged, "I completely got away with putting a hit on Justin Bieber."
At the time of the plot, Bieber was just 18 years old and enjoying global superstardom following the massive success of his singles like 'Baby'.
Hollywood Demons: Stalking the Stars premieres April 28 from 9-11 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery and is available for streaming on Max.