Two weeks before his 16th birthday, the man accused of murdering five people in a Colorado nightclub changed his name to distance himself from his father and an extremely troubled childhood. On May 2, 2016, according to Texas court records, Nicholas Franklin Brink became Anderson Lee Aldrich.
His upbringing is marked by a biological father with a criminal history who dabbled in drugs and worked in the porn industry and a mother with multiple arrests in California and Texas. The two parents separated while Aldrich was a toddler.
Aldrich’s difficult childhood and earlier existence as Nicholas Brink offer the first clues to the mysteries of who the suspected gunman was, though it is unclear yet if his tumultuous childhood is related in any way to the attack at Club Q in Colorado Springs. Shortly before he changed his name, the suspected shooter apparently was a target of online bullying and showed signs of a fascination with gay culture.
