FILE – This March 16, 2021, booking photo provided by the Crisp County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office shows Robert Aaron Long. A man accused of killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage businesses pleaded guilty in Cherokee County on Tuesday, July 27, 2021, hoping for a sentence of life without parole to the first four of the shooting deaths. Robert Aaron Long faces still faces the death penalty if convicted in four more shooting deaths in Atlanta, where he faces charges of domestic terrorism with a hate crime enhancement in addition to murder. (Crisp County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)CANTON, Ga. (AP) – A man accused of killing eight people, most of them women of Asian descent, at Atlanta-area massage businesses pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday in four of the killings and was handed four sentences of life without parole.
Robert Aaron Long, 22, still faces the death penalty in the four other deaths, which are being prosecuted in a different county. The string of shootings at three different businesses in March ignited outrage and fueled fear among Asian Americans, who were already facing increased hostility at the time linked to the coronavirus pandemic. Many were particularly upset when authorities suggested Long’s crimes were not racially motivated but instead born of a sex addiction, which is not recognized as an official disorder.
In comments sure to further frustrate those who believe Long targeted Asian women, a prosecutor reiterated Tuesday that Cherokee County investigators saw no evidence of racial bias. That’s at odds with the hate crime enhancement that Long, who is white, faces just miles away in the four deaths in Atlanta.
“This was not any kind of hate crime,” District Attorney Shannon Wallace said.
On March 16, Long shot and killed four people, three of them women and two of Asian descent, at Youngs Asian Massage in Cherokee County, according to police accounts. A fifth person was wounded. Long then drove to Atlanta, where he shot and killed three women at Gold Spa before going across the the street to Aromatherapy Spa and fatally shooting another woman, police have said. All of the Atlanta victims were of Asian descent.