THE suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub was set to plead guilty today over an attack last year that killed five people and wounded 17 at a longtime sanctuary for the LGBT community.

The plea could bring a life sentence for suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich and end the court case just seven months after the shooting, but may spare the victims’ families and survivors from a potentially painful trial.

Victims’ family members and survivors were expected to speak at today’s hearing about how their lives were forever altered by the terror that erupted just before midnight on November 19 when the suspect walked into Club Q and indiscriminately fired an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle.

Aldrich, who is non-binary and uses they and them pronouns, had been 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.

The hearing follows a series of jailhouse phone calls from Aldrich to reporters expressing remorse and the intention to face the consequences at this court hearing. 

However the United States Justice Department is still considering whether to pursue federal hate crime charges.