ATLANTA — Police on Thursday said their investigation has revealed that the suspect in Tuesday’s spa shooting spree in the metropolitan area had visited both of the northeast Atlanta locations in the past.
“I can say that he had frequented both of those locations,” deputy police Chief Charles Hampton Jr. said at a news conference Thursday. “Unfortunately, they were at that location. I can’t say that he specifically targeted those individuals. He did frequent those two locations.”
The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, was arrested in South Georgia on Tuesday night. The 21-year-old from Woodstock has been charged with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault.
Hampton said police are not ready to release the names of the four women gunned down at the two Atlanta spas during the deadly shooting spree that rattled two metro communities and shook the nation. The Fulton County medical examiner’s office said investigators have positively identified three of the women, but are waiting to identify the fourth before releasing the victims’ names.
“I was hoping we would be able to release the names of the victims, but we are not able to do that at this time,” Hampton said. “We need to make sure we have a true verification of their identities and that we make a proper next of kin notification.”
The four Atlanta victims, all of whom were Asian women, were killed by Long during a shooting spree that began at an Acworth-area spa in Cherokee County about 5 p.m. and ended inside two similar businesses on Piedmont Road, investigators said. Atlanta police said they are working with the Korean Consulate to accurately ID their four victims.
“We had four Asian females that were killed, and so we are looking at everything to make sure that we discover and determine what the motive of our homicides were,” Hampton said.
Five people were shot during the Cherokee County incident and four of those victims died. They were identified Wednesday as Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, of Acworth; Paul Andre Michels, 54, of Atlanta; Xiaojie Tan, 49, of Kennesaw; and Daoyou Feng, 44, of an unknown address. The fifth victim, Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, 30, of Acworth, was injured. He remains at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, according to his family.
While Cherokee County investigators said the shootings did not appear to be racially motivated, Atlanta police have not ruled out charging Long with a hate crime.
”Nothing is off the table,” Hampton said. ”On March 16th, a total of eight innocent lives were violently taken by the hands of one lone killer. The Atlanta Police Department continues to offer our support to the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.”
Hampton said most homicide cases take time to solve, especially when there multiple victims, and that he expects a “lengthy investigation” into the spa shootings.
At a news conference Wednesday, Cherokee investigators said Long claimed to have a sex addiction and frequented the types of businesses targeted in Tuesday’s shootings, reportedly calling them a “temptation he wanted to eliminate.”
The first shootings happened around 5 p.m. at Young's Asian Massage Parlor, according to authorities. Surveillance cameras captured a man entering the Acworth business, then leaving after shots were fired. Long then drove to Atlanta in a Hyundai SUV, where he fatally shot four more women at the Gold Spa and the Aromatherapy Spa along Piedmont Road, investigators said.
About two hours later, he was arrested by deputies and state troopers in Crisp County, about 150 miles south of Atlanta. During interviews with detectives, he said he planned to drive to Florida, possibly to continue the shooting spree, Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds said.
Six of the eight people killed Tuesday were Asian women, prompting police across the Atlanta area to step up patrols in Asian American communities and around Asian-owned businesses.
The gun used in the shootings was purchased hours earlier at a gun store in Holly Springs.
On Thursday, five Asian American lawmakers and others said the shootings were another example of rising violence against Asian Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic. They called for background checks for gun purchases, better mental health services and other steps they say will address such violence and racism.
In a statement released Wednesday night, Atlanta police called the shootings “two despicable acts of violence” and said their investigation into the slayings is far from over.
“It is hard to comprehend what could lead someone to commit such a heinous crime and how someone could show such disregard for life,” the statement read. “These deaths impacted all of our first responders as well as our communities, but, more importantly, they impacted the victims’ families and friends in a way most of us can only imagine. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims’ families and friends who had their loved ones taken from them in such a senseless and untimely manner.”
