CANTON, GA. • A man accused of killing eight people, mostly women of Asian descent, at Atlanta-area massage businesses pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday in four of the killings and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Robert Aaron Long, 22, still faces the death penalty in the other deaths, which are being prosecuted in another county. The string of shootings at three businesses in March ignited outrage and fueled fear among Asian Americans, who already faced increased hostility linked to the coronavirus pandemic. Many were particularly upset when authorities suggested Long’s crimes weren’t racially motivated but born of a sex addiction, which isn’t recognized as an official disorder.

A prosecutor reiterated Tuesday that Cherokee County investigators saw no evidence of racial bias.

“This was not any kind of hate crime,” District Attorney Shannon Wallace said during a hearing.

On March 16, Long shot and killed four people, three of them women and two of Asian descent, at Youngs Asian Massage in Cherokee County. A fifth person was wounded. Long then drove to Atlanta, where he shot and killed three women at Gold Spa before crossing the street to Aromatherapy Spa and killing another woman, police said. All of the Atlanta victims were of Asian descent.

In Atlanta, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said she intends to seek the death penalty. There, Long faces charges of aggravated assault and domestic terrorism in addition to murder.

Wallace explained that investigators in Cherokee County didn’t find evidence of bias based on race or ethnicity. Long walked through the first spa “shooting anyone and everyone he saw,” and told detectives he was motivated by a sex addiction.

Investigators interviewed people who knew him for years, including three of Asian descent, who said they’d never heard him make racist comments, Wallace said. Her team also considered the diversity of the Cherokee County victims, who included a Hispanic man and a white man and woman.

Asian American community leaders said Tuesday they were concerned that the shootings continue to be blamed on a sex addiction. Long’s crimes were “intended to target Asian people, specifically Asian women,” said state Rep. Bee Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American to serve in the Georgia House and a frequent advocate for women and communities of color.

Wallace said she would have argued at trial that Long was motivated by gender bias, though that wouldn’t have extended his sentence.

Prosecutors in Fulton County, where all the victims were women of Asian descent, have said they believe Long was motivated by race and gender. They plan to seek a hate crime sentencing enhancement.