A New Mexico inmate, an ex-convict on probation and his nephew are under investigation for plotting to castrate and murder pop singer Justin Bieber, police said on Thursday.
Their unsuccessful scheme called for targeting Bieber and his bodyguard while in New York City in mid-November and their motive grew from the inmate’s quest for notoriety and his infatuation with Bieber, said a New Mexico State Police affidavit.
The inmate, , who is serving two life sentences for a 2000 rape and murder of a 15 year old girl in Vermont has a tattoo of Bieber on his leg and had attempted to correspond with Bieber, who never responded, the affidavit said.
With Martin serving as the mastermind, the plan called for the uncle and nephew to first kill two other people, in Vermont, the affidavit said. But the entire scheme to kill a total of four people, including Bieber, unraveled when the uncle and nephew missed their turn on a Vermont road and ended up heading toward the Canadian border on November 19, authorities said.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent at the Highgate Springs crossing arrested the uncle, Mark Aaron Staake, 41, because he was found to have an outstanding warrant for a felony parole violation out of New Mexico, authorities said.
The nephew, Tanner Ruane, 23, was released with their 1983 BMW but he then spilled the beans about the murder plots when he called Martin in prison the same day, New Mexico authorities said.