The man accused of killing eight people at three separate Atlanta-area spas was indicted on several murder charges, and the prosecutor will seek additional hate crime charges and the death penalty.
A Fulton County grand jury in Georgia indicted Robert Aaron Long, 22, on Tuesday in the March 16 killing of four people — Suncha Kim, 69; Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; and Yong Ae Yue, 63. Long allegedly killed these four people at two of the spas, while the victims in the third assault (Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Tan, 49; and Daoyou Feng, 44) were killed in a different jurisdiction.
The grand jury indicted him with four counts of murder, four counts of felony murder, five counts of assault with a deadly weapon, four counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and one count of domestic terrorism. He had previously been charged with eight counts of murder in connection with the attacks.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed notice that she intends on filing hate crime charges, as well as the death penalty, according to the Associated Press.
Six of the eight victims were Asian, and seven were women, leading many to suspect that the shooting was a hate crime, especially as there has been an increase in hate crimes against the Asian American community since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The alleged shooter, however, claimed that race was not a motivating factor.
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Long, in his interrogation with police, claimed that his attack was not motivated by racism, rather that it had to do with a sex addiction. A former roommate of Long, Tyler Bayless, said the alleged shooter spent several months seeking treatment for what he described as a sex addiction.
He said that on a close-to-monthly occurrence, Long would admit to his roommates that he had relapsed by visiting a massage parlor for sex, according to the New York Times.
