Yong Ae Yue, 63, was killed on March 16, 2021, during a shooting spree that targeted three Atlanta-area spas. She was working at Aromatherapy Spa in Atlanta that evening; her sons said she had recently begun duties including cooking, cleaning, and monitoring security cameras. Family remembered her for cooking Korean food, singing karaoke, and being kind-hearted.

The gunman, identified as 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, began earlier that day at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth before driving to Atlanta and opening fire at Gold Spa and Aromatherapy Spa. Eight people were killed in total, six of them women of Asian descent. Long was arrested that day after his parents recognized him from surveillance images and contacted law enforcement.

In Cherokee County Long pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and received four consecutive life sentences plus 35 years; prosecutors there did not pursue hate crime charges. In Fulton County, where Yue was killed, District Attorney Fani Willis has announced intent to seek the death penalty and to pursue hate crime charges; the Fulton County indictment includes murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and domestic terrorism, and remained in the pretrial phase as of early 2026.

Did anyone who knew Yong Ae Yue or worked at Aromatherapy Spa see or hear anything that night that could help clarify what happened?