Start here
Killer Realizes Cops Discovered His Embarrassing Secrets
Coffeehouse Crime's 27-minute breakdown, the fullest single telling on file.
Watch on YouTubeWhat happened
On the afternoon of March 16, 2021, a shooting spree unfolded at three businesses in the metropolitan Atlanta area, killing eight people and wounding a ninth. The attacks began around 3:38 p.m. at Young's Asian Massage near Acworth in Cherokee County, where the gunman fatally shot Paul Andre Michels, Daoyou Feng, Xiaojie Tan, and Delaina Ashley Yaun González, and wounded another man. Roughly an hour later, shootings occurred at Gold Massage Spa and Aromatherapy Spa on Piedmont Road in northeast Atlanta, about 30 miles away, killing Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Soon Chung Park, and Yong Ae Yue. Six of the eight people killed were women of Asian descent; the ninth victim, a Hispanic man from Guatemala, survived a gunshot wound.
The suspect, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long of Woodstock, Georgia, was identified after his parents recognized him from surveillance footage and contacted authorities, noting that his vehicle carried a tracking device. Long was located in Crisp County, about 150 miles south of Atlanta, and taken into custody that evening after a PIT maneuver ended a pursuit on Interstate 75. He was initially charged in connection with the Cherokee County shooting and later identified as a suspect in the Piedmont Road shootings as well.
Long told police his actions stemmed from a self-described sexual addiction that conflicted with his religious beliefs, and that he had targeted spas he had previously patronized for paid sex, intending to "eliminate the temptation." He denied that race played a role. This account was publicly disputed by numerous organizations, including the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, as well as by U.S. Representatives Marilyn Strickland and Bee Nguyen, South Korean media, and victims' families, who noted that six of the eight victims were Asian women amid a documented rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Long was indicted on 19 counts in Fulton County, including murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and domestic terrorism, and on 23 counts in Cherokee County, including malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. On July 27, 2021, he pleaded guilty to the Cherokee County charges and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole; Cherokee County's district attorney stated investigators found no evidence of racial bias. Fulton County prosecutors later announced they would seek the death penalty and pursue hate crime designations based on race and gender for the Piedmont Road shootings; Long pleaded not guilty to those charges on September 28, 2021.
The shootings drew national and international attention, contributing to the Stop Asian Hate movement, prompting congressional passage of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, and generating scrutiny of a sheriff's captain's public remarks describing the shooter as having had "a really bad day," which drew criticism after his own past social media posts containing anti-Chinese sentiment came to light.
