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Prosecutor seeks hate crime charges, death penalty in Atlanta spa shootings

Georgia Spa Shootings
Posted at 2:26 PM, May 11, 2021
and last updated 2021-05-11 15:28:12-04

ATLANTA — A man accused of killing eight people in shootings at three Atlanta-area massage businesses has been indicted on murder charges.

A Fulton County prosecutor says she’ll seek hate crime charges and the death penalty after a grand jury indicted 22-year-old Robert Aaron Long on murder charges Tuesday.

The indictment only covers the four killings that happened at two spas in Atlanta. It will be up to a separate grand jury in Cherokee County to decide on charges in the shooting at a spa near suburban Woodstock in which four were killed and one person was wounded.

The shootings took place at three seperate spas in the Atlanta area on March 16.

Long allegedly first attacked Young's Asian Massage in Cherokee County, Georgia before heading south and attacking two nearby spas in the northern Atlanta area.

He was later taken into custody along I-75 in southern Georgia several hours later. At a press conference the next day, police officials claimed that the suspect may have been headed to commit a similar act at a spa in Florida.

Six of the eight people killed in the shooting were women of Asian descent.