The gunman who launched a series of deadly attacks on Asian massage parlors in Atlanta and its environs last March was sentenced today to life in prison for half of the murders he committed, but is in danger of being sentenced to death.
Robert Aaron Long, 22, pleaded guilty to four counts of murder March 16 at a massage parlor in Akworth, 50 miles (50 km) from Atlanta. At the end of the hearing, in the presence of the relatives of the victims, the judge sentenced them to life imprisonment, without the right to suspend the sentence, for this bloodbath.
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That same day, Long went to two other salons in Atlanta and opened fire, killing four other women. The area, however, falls under another jurisdiction and, unlike the first killings, Fulton County Attorney considers the motive of the perpetrator to be racist, given that six of its eight victims were of Asian descent. Prosecutor Fanny Willis said she would seek the death penalty, but no date has been set for the trial.
The young man, a fanatical Christian and gun lover, has admitted his actions but claims that his motives were not racist but that he wanted to stifle his “sexual obsessions”. He told Judge Ellen McElia today that she had bought a pistol with the intention of committing suicide because she felt “ashamed”. He then parked his car outside a massage parlor and drank alcohol for an hour, until he decided to go inside and kill those inside. “I wanted to stop what was happening there and punish the people,” he said, according to the Atlanta-Journal-Constitution.
