The mother of the suspect accused of fatally gunning down five people and wounding 18 at a Colorado Springs gay bar was herself arrested in the hours after the deadly shooting, according to a summons obtained by The Daily Beast.
Laura Lea Voepel, 45, is facing two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest over a meltdown she allegedly had when police showed up at her home around 3:30 a.m. on Nov. 20. Roughly three-and-a-half hours earlier, authorities say 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich opened fire on patrons and staff at Club Q, a local LGBTQ nightspot.
Aldrich, whose lawyers say he identifies as non-binary but whose mother used male pronouns in text messages to him on the day of the shooting, was born Nicholas Franklin Brink in 2000 to Voepel and MMA-fighter-turned-porn-actor Aaron Franklin Brink. The 6-foot-4, 260-pound Aldrich, who is listed as male in jail booking records, changed their name in 2016 to escape their father’s criminal past, court filings show.
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Anderson Lee Aldrich.
Colorado Springs Police DepartmentAfter the Club Q massacre, officers with the Colorado Springs Police Department showed up at Voepel’s North Union Boulevard apartment building, the summons states, noting that cops warned Voepel “multiple times to stop yelling” or she would be arrested.
“Subject continued to make unreasonable noise directly next to multiple apartments,” the summons, which was first reported by Denver Fox affiliate KDVR and Denver NBC affiliate KUSA, continues. “While I attempted to place subject into custody, she became combative by physically resisting officers’ control by force.”
The summons, which was provided to The Daily Beast on Tuesday by the Colorado Judicial Branch, does not specify what Voepel was yelling about. She has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Voepel, whose father is a hard-right GOP politician in Santee, California, has a criminal history that includes arrests for DUI, public intoxication, and arson (which she pleaded down in court to criminal mischief), court records show. According to the Denver Gazette, Voepel is wanted in California on three outstanding arrest warrants. She is also in legal hot water over a five-year probation term handed down in 2018 that she never finished, the Gazette reported. Additionally, Voepel and Aldrich were reportedly filmed in July hurling racial slurs at airline passengers.
A relative previously told The Daily Beast that Voepel and Aldrich have “always had issues, a lot of problems.”
“I don’t want anything to do with that part of the family,” said the relative, who asked not to be named publicly. “They’ve always had issues, a lot of problems… I’m totally disgusted by that side of the family right now.”
Aldrich’s father, Voepel’s ex, is former professional mixed martial arts competitor Aaron Brink, who later got hooked on meth and began filming porn in 2002 under the pseudonym “Dick Delaware.” Brink, 48, was “pretty much never around” for most of Aldrich’s life, according to the relative.
In an interview last week with a local TV station outside his San Diego home, Brink, 48, said his first reaction upon hearing about the Club Q murders was relief that Aldrich was not gay.
“[Aldrich’s lawyers] started telling me about the incident, a shooting involving multiple people,” Brink told CBS 8, using male pronouns to describe Aldrich. “And then I go on to find out it’s a gay bar. I said, ‘God, is he gay?’ I got scared, ‘Shit, is he gay?’ And he’s not gay, so I said, ‘Phhhewww…’”
Guy DiSilva, a porn actor who appeared with Brink in such films as 2005’s Crazy Insane Blowjob Orgies 2, 2006’s Deep Throat: How Low Can You Go, and Shut Up And Fuck Me White Boy 1, also released in 2006, said he remembered his old colleague as “a little crazy.”
DiSilva, who grew up in the Bronx but has lived and worked in Los Angeles for many years, told The Daily Beast that Brink was “always a little tweaked in the head, I always thought he was a little strange. He kind of beat to a different drumbeat, so to speak.”
Brink has done time in federal prison for drug trafficking, and appeared in a 2009 episode of Intervention to try and get a handle on his meth habit. During the show, it was revealed that Brink masturbated up to 12 hours a day while high.
“I loved fucking chicks,” Brink told XBiz in 2007. “I loved speed. Problem was that the two are a horrible mix together. Forget the fact that I was a moody, angry man. What really pissed me off was that for so long I was fucking just for the money to get more drugs. And that wasn’t fair to the women I worked with back then. I could have fucked them so much better if I wasn’t such a drug addict.”
Security footage captured Anderson Lee Aldrich on the day he was arrested for threatening to blow up the house his mother was renting.
Provided to The Daily BeastAldrich was also on law enforcement’s radar prior to the Club Q shooting. Last year, Voepel called 911 and said Aldrich was threatening to blow up the house where she was then living.
Security camera footage provided to The Daily Beast showed Voepel calling her mother as Aldrich pulled up and saying, “Andy’s out front, uh, going crazy.” She was later seen on the footage helping her son drag a suitcase inside the house.
In a since-deleted livestream posted to Voepel’s Facebook from inside the home during the incident, which was provided to The Daily Beast by a source close to the family, Aldrich can be seen wandering from room to room, in a tactical helmet, bulletproof vest, and cradling a long black object.
“This is your boy,” Aldrich says, amped up and breathing heavily. “I’ve got the shitheads outside, look at that. They’ve got a bead on me… They’ve got their fuckin’ rifles out. If they breach, I’ma fuckin’ blow it to holy hell. So, uh, go ahead and come on in, boys! Let’s fuckin’ see it!”
Aldrich was preliminarily booked on two counts of felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping, but authorities said they never found any explosives and Aldrich was never prosecuted. Citing restrictive privacy laws, Colorado Springs District Attorney Michael Allen has declined to provide details as to why the state’s red flag laws did not trigger an automatic seizure of Aldrich’s guns in the wake of the alleged bomb threat. The rifle used in the Club Q shooting was reportedly purchased legally.
Voepel is scheduled to be arraigned on the disorderly conduct and resisting arrest charges on Jan. 25.
