8 PEOPLE SHOT DEAD AT 3 MASSAGE PARLORS

Shootings 30 miles apart in Atlanta, Cherokee County; suspect arrested. Investigators working to determine why victims were targeted.

The shootings happened about 30 miles apart, in less than an hour. After the gunshots stopped, eight people were dead and another was injured. Investigators in different jurisdictions were left trying to piece it all together Tuesday night.

Around 5 p. m., four people were shot to death at a Cherokee County massage parlor and a fififth was injured, according to the Cherokee County Sheriffff ’s Offiffice. Shortly before 6 p. m., shots were fifired at two businesses along Piedmont Road, near the intersection with Cheshire Bridge Road, according to Atlanta police.

All of those killed were inside spas.

“It does appear that it’s the same suspect,” Cherokee Sheriffff ’s Capt. Jay Baker said.

Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock was arrested in

Crisp County, about 150 miles south of Atlanta, authorities said late Tuesday.

The string of events started near a busy Cherokee intersection, Bells Ferry Road and Ga. 92, at Young’s Asian Massage Parlor, according to Baker. Five people inside the business were shot, killing four, Baker said. The names of those killed were not released late Tuesday.

Surveillance footage showed a white man pulling up about 4: 50 p.m ., minutes before the shooting, according to investigators. After shots rang out, he was seen walking out of the business and leaving in a black SUV.

Homicides are not common in Cherokee, where the sheriff ’s office investigated one homicide in both 2020 and 2019.

While Cherokee inv es ti gators closed a shopping center and a busy roadway to investigate the shooting in that jurisdiction, Atlanta police officers were responding to a shooting about 30 miles away.

Around 5:47 p.m ., officers were called to a business robbery at the Gold Spa on Piedmont Road, Sgt. John Chafee with Atlanta police said. Inside, officers found three women shot to death, he said.

While investigating that shooting, officers were told shots were fired across the street at Aromatherapy spa. Inside the business, officers found a woman who had been shot to death, Chafee said.

The names of the four women killed in Atlanta were not released late Tuesday. Bryant said they all appeared to be Asian. Of the Cherokee County victims, two were Asian women, one was a white woman and one was a white male. A Hispanic male was injured, Baker said.

A majority of Atlanta police commanders were at the Piedmont Road scene for the investigation.

“It is an extreme priority for us,” interim Atlanta police Chief Rodney Bryant said.

A security guard at an adult establishment across the street from the Atlanta shooting site said women who worked there seemed to never leave. They not only worked there, they apparently slept there, said the guard, whose boss interrupted the interview demanding an Atlanta Journal- Constitution reporter leave his property.

At a convenience store next door to the site of the Atlanta shooting, clerk Mijay Ruman said he didn’t know until an hour after the incident that anything had happened.

“They never talked to anyone,” Ruman said of the people who worked there.

ALYSSA POINTER/ ALYSSA. POINTER@ AJC. COM Police investigate Tuesday’s shootings along Piedmont Road in Atlanta, where four people were killed at two separate businesses.

Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock has been identifified as the suspect in the shootings Tuesday.

ALYSSA POINTER/ ALYSSA. POINTER@ AJC. COM Atlanta Police investigators swarmed the scene of two deadly shootings Tuesday evening at spas on Piedmont Road near Cheshire Bridge Road that claimed four lives, about an hour after four people were killed at a Woodstock massage parlor.

SHADDI ABUSAID/ SHADDI. ABUSAID @ AJC. COM Four women were fatally shot and a man was wounded l ate Tuesday af ternoon at Young’s Asian Massage Parlor near the busy intersection of Bells Ferry Road and Ga. 92 in Woodstock.