Colorado Springs mass shooter pleads guilty on five counts of murder

The suspect accused of killing five people in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub pleaded guilty in court on Monday. 

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 23, who is nonbinary and uses they and them pronouns, wore a blue plaid shirt and blue tie, calmly responded to the judge as they pleaded guilty on five charges of first-degree murder, 46 charges of attempted first-degree murder, and two bias-motivated crimes.

A guilty plea means the victims’ families will not be subjected to a months long trial forcing them to relive the day of the shooting.

Victims’ family members and survivors are expected to speak at Monday’s hearing about how their lives were forever altered by the terror that erupted just before midnight when the suspect walked into Club Q and indiscriminately fired an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.

Aldrich was arrested over a year before the attack for threatening their grandparents and vowing to become ‘the next mass killer.’ But, charges in that case were ultimately dropped.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, the non-binary 22-year-old accused of shooting dead five people at Club Q, an LGBTQ  club in Colorado Springs on November 19, 2022. He is pictured in his mugshot after his November arrest

Noah Reich, left, and David Maldonado, the Los Angeles co-founders of Classroom of Compassion, set up a memorial near Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Nov. 22, 2022, with photographs of the five victims of a mass shooting at the gay nightclub

Monday’s hearing follows a series of jailhouse phone calls from Aldrich to The Associated Press expressing remorse and the intention to face the consequences at this court hearing. 

Several survivors told the AP about a planned plea agreement after being approached about Aldrich’s comments. They said prosecutors had notified them that Aldrich will plead guilty to charges that would ensure a sentence of life behind bars.

Federal and state authorities and defense attorneys have declined to comment on a possible plea agreement for Aldrich but Colorado law requires victims to be notified of such developments.

Aldrich faces more than 300 state counts, including murder and hate crimes. The U.S. Justice Department is considering pursuing federal hate crime charges, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the matter who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing case.

Aldrich hinted at plans to carry out violent attacks at least a year before the Club Q assault. In June 2021, Aldrich’s grandparents told authorities that they were warned not to stand in the way of a plan to stockpile guns, ammo, body armor and a homemade bomb to become ‘the next mass killer.’ 

Before Aldrich carried out the deadly shooting, the suspect had threatened to kill their grandparents in 2021 for standing in the way of a plan to become ‘the next mass killer’

Aldrich is pictured last year, showing up at the house where their mother was renting a room, after threatening to blow up their grandparents’ basement

Aldrich was then arrested after a standoff with SWAT officers that was livestreamed on Facebook and the evacuation of 10 nearby homes, telling officers ‘If they breach, I’m a f—-ing blow it to holy hell!’ Aldrich eventually surrendered.

However, the charges against Aldrich were thrown out in July 2022 after Aldrich´s mother and grandparents, the victims in the case, refused to cooperate with prosecutors, evading efforts to serve them with subpoenas to testify, according to court documents unsealed after the shooting. 

Other relatives told a judge they feared Aldrich would hurt their grandparents if released, painting a picture of an isolated, violent person who did not have a job and was given $30,000 that was spent largely on the purchase of 3D printers to make guns, the records showed.

Aldrich was released from jail then and authorities kept two guns – a ghost gun pistol and an MM15 rifle – seized in the arrest. But there was nothing to stop Aldrich from legally purchasing more firearms, raising questions immediately after the shooting about whether authorities should have sought a red flag order to prevent such purchases.

Club Q victim Kelly Loving, 40, a transwoman was among the five people killed in the shooting 

Derrick Rump, 38,  was ‘active in the local LGBTQ community’ and beloved by friends, family

Raymond Green Vance, 22, was tragically killed during the club massacre

Daniel Aston, 28, was one of the innocent victims killed by the lone gunman

Ashley Paugh, 35, a married mother was one of five victims 

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said it would not have been able to seek a court order stopping Aldrich from buying or possessing guns because the 2021 arrest record was sealed after the charges were dropped. There was no new evidence that they could use to prove that Aldrich posed a threat ‘in the near future,’ the sheriff´s office said.

Investigators later revealed that the two guns Aldrich had during the Club Q attack – the rifle and a handgun – appeared to be ghost guns, or firearms without serial numbers that are homemade and do not require an owner to pass a background check.

Aldrich told AP in one of the interviews from jail they were on a ‘very large plethora of drugs’ and abusing steroids at the time of the attack. But they did not answer directly regarding the hate crimes charges. 

Candles, flowers, cards sit outside Club Q in memory of the five victims that lost their lives 

Investigators at the scene of the Club Q nightclub, where Aldrich arrived with an AR-15 rifle

When asked whether the attack was motivated by hate, Aldrich said only that was ‘completely off base.’ Aldrich’s attorneys, who have not disputed Aldrich’s role in the shooting, have also pushed back on hate being the reason.

Some survivors who listened to the recorded phone calls saw Aldrich’s comments as an attempt to avoid the death penalty which still exists in the federal system. 

Colorado abolished it in 2020 and life without prison is now the mandated sentence for first-degree murder in the state.

They objected to Aldrich’s unwillingness to discuss a motive and their use of passive, general language like ‘I just can´t believe what happened’ and ‘I wish I could turn back time.’