Before the 2021 arrest filings were made public, though, Fourth Judicial District DA Michael Allen described them in detail during a press conference whose subtext essentially translated to "Don't blame us for the failure to prosecute. Blame the family" — specifically Laura Voepel, the mother of alleged shooter Anderson Lee Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, and her parents, Pamela and Jonathan Pullen, who allegedly refused to cooperate with authorities over the course of more than a year.
After the shooting, Allen's office routinely replied to requests for the suspect's arrest history by asserting that "no records exist." During the press conference, Allen stressed that this response was dictated by a Colorado statute that restricts the ability of prosecutors to speak publicly about sealed cases and mandates the use of the phrase. "The legislature created this problem with the way this statute is written, and it must be changed," he maintained.
But records certainly did exist, and revealed that Pamela Pullen called 911 on June 18, 2021, around 2 p.m. She said her grandson was assembling the bomb in a basement packed with firearms, ammo and body armor and had told her "he was going to be the next mass killer." Pullen added that she and her husband were terrified by what the affidavit describes as the "recent homicidal threats towards them and others" by her grandson, which followed their decision to sell their home in advance of a planned move to Florida.
According to the document, the Pullens' relocation would "interfere with his bomb-making" — an assertion underscored during a family meeting when the suspect was said to have dramatically loaded bullets into the magazine of a Glock handgun before stating that if they insisted on leaving for the Sunshine State, "You guys die today, and I’m taking you with me. I’m loaded and ready. You’re not calling anyone."
Pamela Pullen eventually defied this threat after the suspect, who'd been guzzling vodka, returned to the basement, and deputies with the El Paso County Sheriff's Office rushed to Voepel's house, where they were able to reach the latter by phone. But she allegedly refused to reveal her son's whereabouts, and texted her landlord to say "The cops are after my son."
A screen capture from a livestream from the 2021 arrest.
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About 5:46 p.m., he surrendered, triggering a lengthy, winding and ultimately frustrating trek through the criminal justice system.
Aldrich was arrested on suspicion of three first-degree kidnapping counts and a pair of menacing charges, and held on a $1 million bond. The size of the bond was likely influenced by seizures from the home, which included approximately 113 pounds of ammonium nitrate, containers of aluminum powder, ammunition, body armor, a gas mask and a "ghost gun" — a pistol lacking serial numbers that may have been made by a 3D printer of the sort the defendant in the Club Q shootings reportedly obtained.
However, the bond was lowered to $100,000 on August 5, 2021, and a no-contact order in regard to the suspect's mother eliminated — a determination presumably influenced by statements from Voepel and his grandmother, who characterized him as "loving" and "sweet," Allen said.
Earlier this year, on January 27, Aldrich entered a not-guilty plea to the charges — a move that required proceedings to get underway by July 26, one day shy of six months later, in order to not violate Colorado's speedy-trial law. But over the months that followed, prosecutors weren't able to serve subpoenas to either Voepel or the Pullens, who did indeed move out of state, prompting a request for a continuance on July 5. A judge refused to issue it, though, and dismissed the case. As a result, the files were sealed on August 11, a little over three months before the Club Q shooting.
Allen didn't rip the judge for the decision to pull the plug, admitting that "if witnesses cannot be produced at a trial and we are against speedy trial, it is very common for a court to dismiss a case." But he emphasized that his office had pressed the case against the suspect "until we couldn't prosecute it any longer," and added that the filing of felony charges had essentially acted as the equivalent of a red flag order — a proceeding intended to prevent individuals deemed a danger to themselves and others from accessing weapons. He also stressed that the weapons grabbed after the bomb threat weren't returned when the suspect asked to get them back.
Still, Allen acknowledged that "a piece of paper in the form of a mandatory protection order, or even a civil protection order, will not stop someone who is intent on hurting someone."
See the press conference below:
