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ATLANTA (CN) — A Georgia man charged with fatally shooting eight people at three metro Atlanta massage parlors pleaded guilty to four counts of murder in suburban Cherokee County on Tuesday and was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole plus 35 years in prison.
Robert Aaron Long, 22, still faces four murder charges in neighboring Fulton County, where a prosecutor has said she will seek the death penalty.
Wearing a white collared shirt, gray slacks and shackles at his waist, Long spoke publicly for the first time since the shootings during Tuesday’s arraignment proceedings. He told the court that feelings of shame about his alleged sex addiction prompted the March 16 shooting inside Youngs Asian Massage that injured Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz and killed Xiaojie “Emily” Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Delaina Yaun, 33; and Paul Michels, 54.
Six of Long’s eight victims were women of Asian descent, leading many to believe that the crimes were racially motivated. But Cherokee County District Attorney Shannon Wallace said Tuesday that investigators found no evidence of racial bias to warrant bringing hate crimes charges in the case.
Cherokee County Superior Court Chief Judge Ellen McElyea appeared to agree with the prosecutor.
“As much as it would be easy to identify this crime as a hate crime… what is also true is that you harmed people who were not in that category,” McElyea said to Long during her closing statements. “Once hatred is given a gun, it doesn’t matter who gets in the way. We are all subject to being the victim of a hate crime, whether we belong to that group or not.”
Regardless of the Cherokee County findings, Fulton Count District Attorney Fani Willis has indicated that she intends to pursue hate crimes charges against Long.
Long told the judge Tuesday that his addiction to pornography and his frequent visits to massage parlors for sexual services had damaged relationships in his life and led his parents to kick him out of their home.
“It never felt like I had a lot of control over those urges and it became obsessive to the point it occupied a lot of thought space,” Long said.
He told the judge that he went to the spa that day with the intention of killing himself after paying for sex one last time. He stopped to buy a 9mm handgun, a box of bullets and a fifth of bourbon on the way.
Long sat drinking in his parked car outside Youngs Asian Massage for about an hour, he said, hoping he would “hate myself enough at that point… to end my own life.”
He told the judge that he decided at that point to kill the people inside the massage parlor to “punish” them.
According to Wallace, Long shot at “anyone and everyone he saw” as he walked from the back of the building to the front.
“I don’t recall thinking much after I pulled the trigger first,” Long said. “My mind felt like it was blank.”
Afterward, Long left and drove to Atlanta to continue the shooting spree at two spas he had frequented in the past. He is accused of killing three Asian women at Gold Spa and another at Aromatherapy Spa.
Long was captured by police while driving to Florida, where he admitted he planned to continue his rampage.
Hernandez-Ortiz, a survivor of the Youngs Asian Massage shooting, addressed the court in Spanish Tuesday to give his victim impact statement.
“This man, why didn’t he think before killing so many people? I only want justice,” he said through a translator.
Speaking through tears from the witness stand, Bonnie Michels, the wife of Paul Michels, told the court that she was missing out on growing old with her late husband.
“I can’t hear his voice anymore. I can’t give him hugs and kisses. A part of me died with him,” she said. “Why did he kill my husband for no reason?”
Defense attorney Daran Burns told the judge Tuesday that Long understands “the gravity of his actions.”
Long will be transferred to Fulton County jail to await his August arraignment for murder and domestic terrorism charges in the deaths of Suncha Kim, 69; Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; and Yong Ae Yue, 63.
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The original version of this story contained a partial misquote of a statement made by Cherokee County District Attorney Shannon Wallace. Courthouse News regrets the error.
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