The 22-year-old gunman charged with killing five and injuring 17 others at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ bar changed their name as a teenager to remove any links to their estranged father, who then appeared to be working as a porn actor .
The shooter is also non-binary, their attorney wrote in court Tuesday, revealing that “they/they use pronouns.”
Anderson Lee Aldrich, who is currently facing 10 felony charges, including first-degree murder, was born Nicholas Franklin Brink, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Beast. His biological father, Aaron Franklin Brink, left when Nicholas was a baby, according to a relative who asked not to be publicly named.
“Minor wants to protect himself + his future from his birth father + his criminal history,” says a notarized affidavit filed in a Texas court almost exactly a month before Aldrich, still Nicholas Brink, turned 16. “Father has had no contact with minor for several years.”
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The handwritten petition to change Aldrich’s name, dated April 2016, was filed in Bexar County, where she and their mother, Laura Voepel, lived at the time. It is signed by Voepel; Aldrich’s biological grandmother Pamela Pullen; step-grandfather Jonathan Pullen; and father Aaron F. Brink, who was listed as residing in San Diego County, California. The filing, which shows that the Pullens had legal custody of Aldrich at the time, was first reported by The Washington Post.
Ramon Molina, a lawyer with the company handling the case, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that there was nothing unusual about the petition and that “nobody here really remembers Aldrich.” A call on Tuesday to a number listed for Aaron Franklin Brink was answered by a man who refused to identify himself, then said Brink was not there and quickly hung up.
However, a family member said that Voepel and Aldrich “have always had problems, lots of problems,” and that Brink, 48, “never had anything to do with him, hardly ever around.” Voepel was booked in 2012 on charges of arson, which she later pleaded to criminal mischief. Public records list a few other non-violent arrests in Voepel’s past.
“I don’t want anything to do with that part of the family,” the relative said, speaking to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity. “They’ve always had problems, lots and lots of problems… I’m totally disgusted with that side of the family now.”
Videos show Club Q suspect threatening to ‘blow mum’s house into hell’
A few minutes before midnight on November 19, Aldrich reportedly opened fire on patrons and staff at the LGBTQ nightclub Club Q. Two heroic bystanders subdued the six-foot-tall, 260-pound Aldrich as she sprayed the room with bullets, causing further carnage was averted, Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said at a news conference. Aldrich was hospitalized with unknown injuries after their arrest, but was transferred to the El Paso County Jail on Tuesday, authorities said.
Last year, Aldrich was arrested after police threatened to blow up the house in Colorado Springs where Voepel rented a room. The charges were later dropped. On Monday, Colorado Springs District Attorney Michael J. Allen said state law prohibited him from disclosing further details of the case, or why Colorado’s red flag laws were not triggered by the episode, which would have meant Aldrich’s weapons to be confiscated. (The gun used in the Club Q shooting was purchased legally, according to reports.)
“He should have received at least some kind of jail time,” Voepel’s landlord told The Daily Beast. “Those people didn’t have to die. It is just very disappointing that the justice system has not followed through with what happened in my house last year.”
Aldrich’s father’s name on the name change petition and the state of California where they lived at the time match exactly with that of porn star turned MMA fighter Aaron Brink, who also shares a middle name, Franklin, with the alleged shooter. according to public records and federal court documents. (A woman who picked up a phone number associated with Brink on Monday and identified herself as his girlfriend claimed he had no children.)
Brink was sentenced to federal prison in 1996 for importing marijuana. He would go on to build a career as a mixed martial arts fighter when he was released in 1998. He soon joined MMA star and one-time mayor pro tempore of Huntington Beach, California, Tito Ortiz, a high school friend, who got him into the sport, USA today‘s MMA Junkie blog reported.
Porn star Dick Delaware at the 2006 Adult Entertainment Expo.
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