Atlanta mass shooter who targeted Asian spas pleads guilty to 4 murders, sentenced to life in prison
The Georgia spa shooter accused of killing eight people, mostly women of Asian descent, in a rampage last spring pleaded guilty to four of the murders Tuesday and was sentenced to life in prison.
Robert Aaron Long, 22, entered the pleas in Canton, Ga., not far from the suburban Atlanta spa in Cherokee County where he started his deadly shooting spree March 16.
His cowardly attack inside his first stop, Young’s Asian Massage, stole the lives of Daoyou Feng, 44; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie “Emily” Tan, 49, and Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33.
Long still faces the possibility of the death penalty in neighboring Fulton County for the four other slayings of Asian women that followed at two more spas in Atlanta.
The victims murdered at Gold Spa and Aromatherapy Spa were identified as Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69, and Yong Ae Yue, 63.
Cherokee County prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty as well but ultimately decided a plea deal would bring more rapid justice and spare families the heartache of lengthy appeals, District Attorney Shannon Wallace said.
Long’s calculated, cold-blooded attack was quickly labeled a hate crime by many Asian-Americans, but it was not charged that way in Cherokee County.
When authorities suggested Long was motivated by his alleged sex addiction rather than race, outrage over the incident grew.
“It is a hate crime when you’re targeting Asian women who you say make you feel a certain way so you’re going to kill them,” actress and activist Margaret Cho previously told the Daily News.
“Why would he specifically seek out Asian spas, Asian-owned spas, Asian-run spas in three different locations in order to kill Asian women if race isn’t a factor? That to me is clearly a hate crime against Asians and Asian women in particular. It has nothing to do with sex addiction,” she said.
But Wallace was adamant Tuesday that Cherokee County investigators found no evidence of racial bias.
The prosecutor said people who knew Long for years, including three of Asian descent, told investigators they had no knowledge of him making prior racist comments.
Her team also weighed the fact that Long seemed to shoot everyone he encountered inside the first spa, including a Latino man and a white man and woman.
Asian-American community leaders said Tuesday they remained unswayed.
Long’s attack was “intended to target Asian people, specifically Asian women,” Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American to serve in the Georgia House, said.
Prosecutors in Fulton County have said they believe Long was motivated by race and gender and that they plan to seek a hate crime sentencing enhancement.
The way Georgia state works, a jury decides after a conviction whether or not the underlying crime was motivated by bias and deserves an additional penalty.
With News Wire Services
