Metro Atlanta has been the site of three mass shootings in recent years. Two suspects remain in custody awaiting trial and one died after exchanging gunfire with authorities.
Robert Aaron Long pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and received four consecutive life sentences plus 35 years without the possibility of parole, in the March 16, 2021 shooting deaths of four people at a Cherokee County massage parlor.
Xiaojie “Emily” Tan, 49, Daoyou Feng, 44, Delaina Yaun, 33, and Paul Michels, 54, died after being shot at Youngs Asian Massage. A fifth person was injured. Former Cherokee County District Attorney Shannon Wallace said she planned to pursue the death penalty, but victims’ families wanted justice without the pain of a trial.
“Today, the families of those individuals who were viciously murdered and the victims who were shot and placed in fear, received justice,” Wallace said after Long’s plea and sentencing. “Today, these victims are left knowing that this defendant will spend the rest of his natural life behind bars. Today, our community will begin to heal from these unspeakable acts of violence.”
Long told investigators he had purchased a gun and ammunition for $460 from Big Woods Goods in Holly Springs. Long’s plan was to commit suicide. After buying the gun, Long drove to a liquor store and purchased bourbon, he said.
From there, he drove to Youngs Asian Massage Parlor near Acworth in a dark-colored Hyundai SUV. Outside the business, Long sat in his SUV for an hour drinking the bourbon before he went inside. He paid for and received a service. Then the shooting began.
“I don’t recall thinking much after I pulled the trigger first,” Long later said. “My mind felt like it was blank.”
After the Cherokee shootings, the shooting spree continued in Atlanta. Yong Ae Yue, 63, Soon Chung Park, 74, Suncha Kim, 69, and Hyun Jung Grant, 51, were killed at two spas along Piedmont Road.
Long awaits trial in Fulton County in the Piedmont Road shootings. A trial date has not yet been set and a motions hearing scheduled for this week has been rescheduled for November.
Fulton County Chief Judge Ural Glanville, assigned to Long’s case, is also assigned to the “Young Slime Life” trial. Jury selection began in January in that case, and continued this week.
Long is currently being held at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, according to the state department of corrections.
Earlier this year, Deion Patterson was arrested after a deadly shooting at a Midtown medical office. One woman died and four others were seriously injured. Patterson’s mother later said her son was having a “mental break.”
Patterson, who was discharged from the U.S. Coast Guard in January, wanted to be prescribed the anxiety medication Ativan, his mother said in an interview with The Associated Press. But his Veterans Affairs medical team declined to give it to him, fearing he could become addicted, according to the report.
The shooting killed Amy St. Pierre, 38, and injured four other women.
After an extended manhunt, Patterson was captured the evening of the shootings in Cobb County. He was indicted in late July and remains in the Fulton jail.
Credit: John Spink
Credit: John Spink
In July, Andre Longmore, 40, was fatally shot after shooting at least two law enforcement officers as they closed in on him in Clayton County after he shot four people to death in Henry County, authorities said.
Hampton police identified the victims as Scott Leavitt, 67; his wife, Shirley Leavitt, 66; Steve Blizzard, 65; and Ronald Jeffers, 66. The married couple and Blizzard all lived on Dogwood Lakes Drive, while Jeffers lived on Dogwood Ridge Drive.
Longmore’s mother, Lorna Dennis, told Channel 2 Action News her son lived with her in the Dogwood Lakes subdivision and struggled with mental health for the better part of a decade. A sergeant in the U.S. Army, Longmore sought treatment in a VA hospital after a mental breakdown in 2014, Dennis said. He was hospitalized for 10 days, his mother told the news station.
“And after he came out, he wasn’t the same again,” she said. “He just kept deteriorating until now.”
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