Justin Bieber’s Biggest Fan Is Also His Deadliest
Justin Bieber knows only too well how quickly a mob of preteen girls can turn into a problem. But if Dana Martin has taught the pop star’s increased security team anything, it’s that the “obvious” is not always the most dangerous.
Currently serving 35 years to life without parole for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Vermont girl in 2000, Martin is the Southern New Mexico prison inmate whose longing for Bieber morphed from creepily obsessive to actively psychotic in two years.
Architect of a 2012 plot to kidnap, castrate, and kill Bieber, for the first time ever Martin’s particularly lethal brand of fandom has been profiled in Details — courtesy of Kevin Gray.
Evidently eager to be heard — he talks of “posterity,” not being a “nobody” and the “validation that somebody like me would get if Justin Bieber was my friend” — but like all extreme fans, Martin’s desire for the teen dream came with conditions.
Initially fixating on the Canadian star in 2010, a lack of response to Martin’s repeated attempts to contact the singer changed his singular obsession into something exponentially darker.
Fast forward to 2012 and the inmate had graduated from being content with endless letter writing and a macro tattoo of a prepubescent Bieber on his right calf, to a full blown plot that marks an ultimate endgame journey from fandom to festering rage.
A plan to kidnap, castrate, and kill the singer in New York City during his two November dates at Madison Square Garden was put into motion, and included an intended hit on two of Martin’s former hometown foes in Vermont.
Somewhat synchronously, the plot was exposed when a former inmate Martin had groomed for the task — Mark Staake — was picked up with his 23-year-old nephew Tanner Ruane on November 19 at the US-Canada border crossing.
While Staake was detained on an outstanding warrant for probation violation, Ruane was let go. However, Martin’s desperate need for recognition motivated him to entrap Ruane and expose his entire plan for Vermont and Bieber.
On November 20 New Mexico State Police charged all three men with multiple counts of first-degree conspiracy to commit murder for the Vermont targets, and, following a January 3 grand jury indictment, the trio are set for a future trial.
And yet, even though Martin’s fantastical plan failed, in his real aim — to make Bieber notice him — he has succeeded.
Just as Martin’s tattoo symbolized a desire to get closer to the object of his sick affections, this manipulator knows that just hearing about the plot — its details and the idea that it’s still ongoing — will have profoundly changed how Bieber processes and approaches his daily life.
Forget Martin’s race-baiting comments about the 19-year-old being a “phony now.” Just about everyarchive to now YouTube out there reveals a musically diverse kid who has always been comfortable around people of different races, and who readily claims Michael Jackson as his first musical hero.
What Martin was really angry about, was the insurmountable distance between where he stood silently watching as a fan and where he wanted to be — inside Justin Bieber’s head.
[Image via Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com]
