Colorado gay club shooting suspect’s mother was arrested just hours after her son – Daily Mail

The mother of the 22-year-old man charged with murdering five people in a mass shooting at a Colorado gay club was arrested the day of the killings, it has been revealed.

Laura Voepel, the mom of 22-year-old Club Q shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich, was arrested outside her home in Colorado Springs early Sunday morning.

She was cited for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, a summons obtained by Denver NBC affiliate KUSA has revealed – hours after her adult child allegedly carried out the attack.

According to the filing, officers had warned Voepel, 45, ‘multiple times’ during the encounter outside the domicile to ‘stop yelling’ – or face arrest.

However, she did not comply, police wrote, and ‘continued to make unreasonable noise directly next to multiple apartments.’ 

The incident transpired at about 3.30am, and ultimately saw Voepel placed under arrest but not admitted to jail. Cops did not specify what Voepel had been yelling about.

Laura Voepel (left), the mom of 22-year-old non binary shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich (right), was arrested outside her home in Colorado Springs early Sunday morning

Voepel, pictured her in 2015, was warned ‘multiple times’ during the encounter outside the domicile to ‘stop yelling’ or face arrest, police said. She is charged with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor, and disorderly conduct, an ‘unclassified petty offense.’ She was not jailed

Less than four hours before, authorities said Aldrich attacked the local LGBTQ nightclub. 

An officer said the mom – who has had prior run-ins with the law – became combative and physically resisted during her arrest. She now faces charges of resisting arrest, as well as disorderly conduct.

Her son, meanwhile, is accused of murdering five people and injuring 17 others at Club Q Saturday. Aldrich’s lawyers said the suspect identifies as non-binary, using they/them pronouns.

He is accused of killing five people: Bartender Daniel Davis Aston, 28; customer Kelly Loving, 40; bartender and bar co-owner Derrick Rump, 38, customer Ashley Paugh, 35; and customer Raymond Greene Vance, 22. 

During the attack, a bargoer was able to grab the gun out of Aldrich’s hand and began beating ‘him in the head [with it], over and over.’ Aldrich’s mugshot shows the aftermath of the reported beatdown, with extensive bruising and marks spread across their

Vance was at the club with his girlfriend Kassy and her family, including her war vet father who is credited with disarming the perpetrator during the midst of his attack.

Ricahrd M. Fierro, a local man who served four combat tours in the U.S. Army, is one of at least two people who stopped Aldrich, who was pummeled by multiple people in attendance after having his gun snatched by the ex-soldier. 

Fierro told The New York Times he grabbed the gun out of the shooter’s hand and ‘just started hitting him in the head, over and over.’ He added that he also ordered a nearby woman to stomp on the shooter’s head with her high heels.

Aldrich’s mugshot shows the aftermath of the reported beatdown, with extensive bruising and marks spread across their face and head.

Kassy broke her knee as she was running for cover. 

Officers called to the scene were subsequently able to apprehend Aldrich, who remains in custody. He is charged with five counts of murder, which are being treated as hate crimes.

He was previously arrested in June 2021 after threatening to blow his mother’s house to ‘holy hell’ in an incident that was caught on video and saw Voepel call the cops on her own son.

The incident last year involved Aldrich fleeing to the home where his mother was arrested Saturday. At the time, Aldrich had been living nearby with his grandma, Pam Pullen, and her husband Jonathan, but went on the run after threatening to kill the couple. 

Ring camera footage from that day shows Voepel at first welcoming Aldrich into the house, helping them with their suitcase. Once inside, he filmed himself in SWAT gear, broadcasting live on his mother’s Facebook account. 

‘This is your boy, I’ve got the f*****g s**threads outside. F*****g s**theads got their f*****g rifles out. If they breach I’m [going to] blow it to holy hell. Come on in boys, let’s f*****g see it!’ Aldrich says in the video. 

Anderson Lee Aldrich is shown, left, in a family photo and right, in a June 2021 livestream where he threatened to blow up a house where his mother was renting a room. He is now charged with five counts of murder

Anderson Lee Aldrich is shown last year, showing up at the house where his mother was renting a room, after threatening to blow up his grandparents, with whom he’d been living nearby. His mom helped him into the house and had called the landlord to tell her not to tell anyone where he was, she claimed on Monday 

Aldrich, 22, was taken into custody at the house where his mother, Laura Voepel, was renting a room in June 2021 in Colorado Springs

Weeks after the incident, Aldrich’s mother Laura asked women in her church group if they could recommend a ‘fantastic defense attorney.’ It’s unclear if she was referring to her son’s case, but the timing would suggest so 

His mom helped him into the house and had called the landlord to tell her not to tell anyone where he was, she claimed on Monday

It was initially reported that his mother, Laura, had called the police. 

But landlord Leslie Bowman has since told DailyMail.com she was the one who alerted authorities to her home after Voepel phoned her to tell her ‘people’ were looking for her son.

‘I was not OK with him hiding out in my house from the police. 

‘I then called police and within three minutes, an officer called me back and said they were looking for him,’ she said. 

Aldrich was taken into custody on charges of felony menacing and kidnapping. He is shown surrendering to the police in one of the videos provided to DailyMail.com. 

The charges were however dropped this year. 

Investigators at the scene of the Club Q nightclub, which was hosting a drag show when they said Aldrich walked in and opened fire

It’s unclear if he owned the weapons used in Saturday’s attack at the time, or if he purchased them in the year since. 

Either way, there are resounding questions now about how he was able to have access to them. 

‘It makes me really mad. When I found out the charges were dropped, I was like “I don’t know what happened.” 

‘There was obviously something bigger there that he was capable of.

‘If those charges had been followed through with, he’d be in prison or at least on some kind of probation and none of that happened. Now, five people are dead,’ Bowman said. 

She said she provided law enforcement with the same videos provided to DailyMail.com,  but that no one ‘followed up’ with her.

Since the bomb threat incident last year, Aldrich’s grandmother Pam and her husband have relocated to Florida.  

His grandfather, MAGA Republican Randy Voepel, has not commented on his involvement in the shooting. 

Bowman described Aldrich as a ‘quiet’ young man who would go over to the house to ‘hang out’ with his mother in the room she was renting. 

She worked from home in a customer service role, Bowman said. 

‘He would come over from time to time in the evening. They’d go up into her room and watch movies and hang out. For the most part, my interactions with him were ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. I didn’t have a whole lot of conversation with him,’ she said. 

She did recall one incident where he slammed the door in her face during a dispute over a broken toilet. 

‘I had come home really late from a road trip. Laura was complaining there was a problem with the toilet in her bathroom. She and I got into it a little bit and I was standing in the hallway at her bedroom door. Andy got in my face and told me to get out. Then he slammed the door in my face.

‘He was visiting at the time. It made me mad, but I chalked it up to a young man protecting his mother,’ she said.   

Voepel is believed to be single. She has one other son, a teenager, who is believed to live with his father. 

Two of the victims have been named as Derrick Rump and Daniel Aston, a 28-year-old trans man, who both worked in the club as bartenders. 

Derrick Rump (left) and Daniel Aston (right) were among the five killed Saturday night in the seemingly premediated attack, carried out by gunman Aldrich, who was armed with an AR-15

People hold a vigil at a makeshift memorial near the Club Q nightclub on Sunday night after the horror shooting

A pair of mourners were emotional at a vigil held outside Club Q in Colorado Springs last night as they remembered the victims of the tragedy

The shooting is now being investigated as a hate crime, leaving members of local LGBTQ community devastated

Aeron Laney, 24, was at the club for the first time, having just moved to Colorado Springs. She described a small club where everyone seemed to know each other, the kind of place she knew she would fit right in. 

‘Everyone was just having a good time and smiling and laughing,’ she told AFP, tearfully looking at the bank of flowers growing outside the club.

‘I just can’t wrap my head around somebody just walking in and seeing people that are so happy and so comfortable in their community and just wanting to end that.’

Meanwhile, Aldrich’s father, porn star Aaron Brink, said he is a ‘Mormon’ and a ‘conservative republican’, and that, in regards his embattled family: ‘We don’t do gay.’

The adult actor from Southern California, who performed under the name Dick Delaware, has spoken previously about his addiction to meth and has been in and out of prison.

ldrich’s father, porn star Aaron Brink, said he is a ‘Mormon’ and a ‘conservative republican’, and that, in regards his embattled family: ‘We don’t do gay’ 

The 48-year-old, who currently works as a mixed martial arts coach and previously competed in the UFC and World Extreme Cage fighting, taught his son how to fight from an early age. 

Bink, who is also a drug addict, told CBS 8: ‘I praised him for violent behavior really early. I told him it works. It is instant and you’ll get immediate results.’

Brink, who left Aldrich’s mother Laura Voepel shortly after she gave birth, has an extensive criminal history and has also appeared on the reality shows Divorce Court and Intervention, when his fiancée tried to get him to stop using crystal meth.

In 2002, he was convicted for misdemeanor battery and was barred from contacting his ex-wife and son, and he was also sentenced to two and a half years for trafficking marijuana and then violated his supervised release conditions by testing positive for illegal steroids.

He said he learned of the mass shooting after a defense attorney told him his son had been arrested.

He said: ‘They started telling me about the incident, a shooting involving multiple people.

‘And then I go on to find out it’s a gay bar. I said, ‘God, is he gay?’ I got scared, ‘Sh*t, is he gay?’ And he’s not gay, so I said, ‘Phhhewww’.’

Aldrich’s father went on to say that being gay did not align with their religious values.

‘You know Mormons don’t do gay. We don’t do gay. There’s no gays in the Mormon church. We don’t do gay.’   

Voepel’s next court appearance for the November 20 summons is set for January 25. 

She is charged with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor, and disorderly conduct, an ‘unclassified petty offense.’