ATLANTAS 'KILLER'S SEX SOB STORY
Spa ‘gunman’ whines of porn addiction
The gunman who allegedly has confessed to shooting up three Atlanta-area massage parlors, killing eight people, had been wracked with “remorse and shame” about his “porn addiction,” his former roommate said Thursday.
Robert Aaron Long often spoke of his struggles with sex addiction while rooming with Tyler Bayless at the Maverick Recovery halfway house in late 2019 and early 2020, Bayless told Reuters.
Long, 21, “would describe several of his sexual addiction ‘relapses’ as he called them,” said Bayless, 35, who was in the home for a drug addiction.
“He would have a deep feeling of remorse and shame and say he needed to return to prayer and to return to God.”
Bayless said that the “deeply religious” Long was “very emotionally distraught that he frequented these places,” referring to massage parlors Long said he visited “for explicitly sexual activity.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, Long opened fire at Young’s Asian Massage in Woodstock, Ga., killing four people and seriously wounding a fifth, authorities have said.
He then drove to the Atlanta suburb of Buckhead, where he shot up two more businesses, Gold Spa and Aromatherapy Spa, killing another four people, according to police.
Long was caught without incident a short time later while driving south, allegedly telling cops that he intended to continue the carnage in Florida by shooting up a porn business.
Under interrogation, Long said that he wanted to “eliminate” the “temptation” fueling his sex addiction, authorities have said.
Deputy Chief Charles Hampton of the Atlanta Police Department on Thursday confirmed that Long “may have frequented” at least the Gold Spa and Aromatherapy Spa, though it remained unclear if he specifically targeted his victims due to any prior interactions.
While authorities have identified the four fatal victims from Young’s Asian Massage, Hampton said Thursday that they are still unable to publicly name those killed in his jurisdiction, due to issues notifying their families of their deaths.
Though six of the eight fatal victims are Asian women, authorities are yet to make a determination as to whether the spree was racially motivated.
“I don’t have a position,” said Hampton when asked during a press briefing about Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds’ saying Wednesday that the slayings didn’t appear to be motivated by racial bias. “We’re not trying to try the case in public.”
Anti-Asian bias has provoked a nationwide wave of hate crimes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, the wife of the spree’s lone surviving victim recounted the desperate phone call he made to her before passing out from his wounds.
“I have been shot! Please come!” Elcias HernandezOrtiz urged his wife, Flor Gonzalez, in the call, Gonzalez recalled Wednesday to The Washington Post. “I need you!”
Hernandez-Ortiz, 30, was wounded in his forehead, throat, lungs and stomach when Long launched his first attack in Cherokee County.
It’s believed that the auto repair shop owner was heading to a store next to Young’s Asian Massage to wire money back to family in his native Guatemala when he crossed Long’s path, Gonzalez told The Washington Post.
As soon as she got the call, Gonzalez, 27, grabbed the couple’s 9-year-old daughter, Yoseline, and rushed to the scene, where she saw her husband lying on the ground amid a sea of first responders.
“It was the most horrible thing,” she told the paper. “I just can’t understand why anyone would do something like this.”
Despite his grievous wounds, doctors are optimistic about Hernandez-Ortiz’s prognosis.
Friends mourned the spa’s owner, Xiaojie “Emily” Tan, 49, as a mother and recent college graduate.
Tan was the “sweetest, most kindhearted, giving” woman, friends told local news outlet WSBTV, which did not identify the pals.