A man already sentenced to life in prison in the fatal shootings of four people at a suburban Atlanta spa pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to four more killings at two spas in the city.
Robert Aaron Long, 22, appeared briefly in Fulton County Superior Court, where he waived arraignment and entered a not guilty plea on charges including murder, aggravated assault and domestic terrorism.
District Attorney Fani Willis is seeking the death penalty, as well as a sentencing enhancement under Georgia’s new hate crimes law.
Long is accused of shooting four people to death at a massage business and shooting and wounding a fifth person in Cherokee County on March 16 before killing four more people at two massage businesses in Atlanta. Six of the eight people killed were women of Asian descent.
The people fatally shot in Atlanta were Suncha Kim, 69; Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; and Yong Ae Yue, 63 in Atlanta.
In July, Long pleaded guilty in Cherokee County to charges including four counts of murder and received four sentences of life without parole plus an additional 35 years. His victims there were Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, Paul Andre Michels, 54, Xiaojie Tan, 49, and Daoyou Feng, 44.
Long did not address Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville Tuesday during the hearing, which lasted a few minutes. Glanville asked the defense if they wanted to waive indictment and plead not guilty, and defense attorney Jerilyn Bell said yes. Glanville set the next hearing in the case for Nov. 23.
Long said during the hearing in Cherokee County that he planned to kill himself that day and went to the massage businesses thinking the shame he felt from paying for sex acts would push him to do it. But while sitting in his car outside the first spa, he decided to kill the people inside.
After shooting five people at that spa in Cherokee County, he got in his car and drove about 30 miles south to Atlanta, where he shot three women at Gold Spa and one woman across the street at Aromatherapy Spa, police have said.
He then got back in his car and headed south on the interstate, and authorities have said he intended to carry out similar attacks in Florida. He was taken into custody in south Georgia, after his parents recognized their son in images from security video posted online by authorities in Cherokee County and called police.
The killings sparked fear and outrage among Asian Americans, who were already on edge because of increased hostility stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Many have been upset by assertions that Long was motivated not by racial bias but by the shame he felt from a sex addiction, which is not recognized as an official disorder.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
