Paul Andre Michels, a 54-year-old male, was a U.S. Army veteran and a small business owner who had lived in the Atlanta area for over two decades. He was one of nine siblings who grew up in Detroit and was remembered by his family as a good, hard-working man who was always willing to help others. Married for more than 20 years, he ran a business installing security systems but had recently been considering a career change, even talking about opening a spa of his own.
Having been out of work for a period, he had recently taken on handyman jobs to make ends meet and had been doing some work for Young's Asian Massage near Acworth, a suburb of Atlanta.
On the afternoon of March 16, 2021, Michels was at Young's Asian Massage when a gunman, later identified as 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, entered the establishment. Long had legally purchased a 9mm handgun earlier that day. After paying for a service and going to the restroom, Long emerged and began his attack. Paul Andre Michels was his first victim; he was in the back of the building when Long shot him once in the head. The gunman then proceeded to shoot and kill three other people at that location: Delaina Ashley Yaun, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyou Feng, and injured a fifth person.
The shooter then drove approximately 30 miles south to Atlanta and continued his rampage, killing four more women at two different spas. All told, eight people were killed in the series of attacks. Robert Aaron Long was arrested later that day in Crisp County, about 150 miles south of Atlanta, after his parents recognized his image from surveillance footage released by authorities and contacted the police. During his confession, Long claimed his motive was a 'sex addiction' and that he wanted to eliminate the temptation that the spas represented to him. This explanation was met with widespread skepticism, as six of the eight victims were women of Asian descent, leading many to believe the attacks were racially motivated hate crimes.
Robert Aaron Long faced murder charges in both Cherokee and Fulton counties. In July 2021, he pleaded guilty to the four murders in Cherokee County, which included the killing of Paul Andre Michels. For these crimes, he was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus 35 years. In Fulton County, where the other four killings took place, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty and have indicted him on charges including murder, felony murder, and domestic terrorism, with a hate crime enhancement based on race and gender. Long pleaded not guilty to the charges in Fulton County, and that case is proceeding separately.
