Nine people were shot Tuesday, eight of them fatally, at three spas in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
On Thursday, authorities identified five of the victims in Cherokee County, and Fulton County identified four women who were killed at two spas in Atlanta’s Piedmont Heights neighborhood. Atlanta police have yet to release much additional information.
Members of the local Korean American community and workers at nearby businesses said all the Fulton County victims were of Korean descent.
Xiaojie Tan, 49: Listed as the owner of Young’s Asian Massage and another spa, Xiaojie Tan emigrated to the United States from China. Friends and clients said she was known to them as “Emily” and had an adult daughter who recently graduated from the University of Georgia. She would have turned 50 on Thursday.
Daoyou Feng, 44: Little is known about Feng except that she was an employee of Young’s Asian Massage.
Delaina Ashley Yaun Gonzalez, 33: Family members said Yaun was at Young’s Asian Massage on a date with her husband, Mario Gonzales, who was uninjured in the attack. She had a 14-year-old son and an 8-month-old daughter. She had worked at the Waffle House just a few stores down from the spa, but family members said she had not been a patron of the spa before Tuesday.
Paul Andre Michels, 54: Michels was an army veteran and a local business owner who had been married for more than 20 years. He moved to Atlanta 25 years ago from Detroit, where he grew up.
Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, 30: Hernandez-Ortiz immigrated to the United States from Guatemala 10 years ago and works as a mechanic. He reportedly was on the way to a money-exchange business next door to Young’s spa when the shooting began, and he was wounded in the forehead, lungs and stomach. Doctors said the bullet that entered his forehead did not penetrate his brain, but he remains in critical condition.
The Fulton County coroner has released information about how the four victims there died, but no additional information has yet been released.
Hyun J. Grant, 51: Grant, a single mother with two sons, loved music and dancing, even while doing chores at home. One of her sons spoke to the Associated Press about his mother. Randy Park, 22, said his mother loved to dance, and he learned how to moonwalk because "I saw her moonwalking while vacuuming when I was a kid." He said his mother didn’t talk about her job but that he and his brother didn’t care, because she loved her sons “enough to work for us, to dedicate her whole life.” Park added that his mother believed people were fundamentally good, but that “sometimes, things go horribly wrong.” She died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Soon C. Park, 74: Died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Suncha Kim, 69: Died of a gunshot wound to the chest.
Yong A. Yue, 63: Died of a gunshot wound to the head.
