Sun Cha Kim was a warrior. ‘
After the 69-year-old emigrated to Seoul, South Korea, to the United States, she worked ‘two to three jobs’, although she spoke ‘very little English’. But the mother-of-two never complained, and was seen as a ‘rock’ for her three grandchildren.
“Stay strong in life … if you’m happy, I’m happy,” she would tell her grandchildren during weekly phone calls, according to a verified GoFundMe fundraiser.
Kim is one of eight people shot dead by 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long during a Tuesday rampage at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area, an attack that sparked fears of anti-Asian violence. According to authorities, Long, who is facing several charges, has confessed to the murder but insisted his actions were motivated by sexual addiction rather than race.
The Fulton County medical examiner on Friday released the names of four victims shot in Atlanta’s Gold Massage Spa and Aroma Therapy Spa, including Kim, 74-year-old Soon C. Park, 51-year-old Hyun J. Grant and 63- yearling Yong A. Yue. The medical examiner concluded that Park, Grant and Yue sustained fatal gunshot wounds to the head while Kim died from a gunshot wound to the chest.
“My grandmother was an angel. To have her taken away in such a horrible way is unbearable to think about,” Kim’s granddaughter said in a statement related to the GoFundMe on Friday night. “All my grandmother ever wanted to immigrate for in life was to grow old with my grandfather and watch her children and grandchildren live the life she never had.”
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday released the names of the other four victims who were shot at Young’s Asian Massage, Long’s first target. According to CCTV, he spent an hour at Young’s in Acworth before the shooting. The victims were identified as Daoyou Feng (44); Delaina Ashley Yaun Gonzalez, a 33-year-old mother-of-two who was on a date with her husband; Paul Andre Michels, a 54-year-old business owner who has been married for more than two decades; and Xiaojie Tan, a 49-year-old who apparently owned at least two massage parlors in Atlanta.
Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, a Spanish man from Acworth, was shot at Young and is currently in hospital due to his injuries.
About an hour later, three people were found dead in the Gold Massage Spa in Atlanta, including Grant. Another person was fatally shot in the Aroma Therapy Spa across the road. Grant’s son, 23-year-old Randy Park, told The Daily Beast on Thursday that “she was a single mother of two children who spent her entire life raising them.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Kim moved to Atlanta more than 15 years ago and lived in Gold Spa at the time of the shooting, where she would help feed employees and do laundry.
“She was pure-hearted and the most selfless woman I have ever known,” Kim’s granddaughter added in the GoFundMe. “She imagined everything I wanted to be as a woman, without a shred of hatred or bitterness in her heart. People who were close to me knew that my grandmother was my rock. ”
‘To have me taken away as a perfectly healthy elderly woman by such a heinous crime broke my heart. “I will never see her again, but I have only happy memories of her and the beautiful life she lived,” the statement added.
Although police did not release details about the victims or many details about Long’s alleged shooting, family and friends provided details about the hard-working people who lost their lives.
Soon, Park’s son-in-law, Scott Lee, in an interview with the New York Times that the 74-year-old worked at Gold Spa and ‘got along so well with her family’. Lee added that she previously lived in New York, where many of her family members still live, before moving to Atlanta.
In a statement issued to The Daily Beast, Yong Yue’s two sons described their devastation over the loss of their “beloved mother” and said “words cannot adequately describe our grief.”
‘Thank you to everyone who helps you to encourage support and words. “As the case has attracted so much attention, we are currently asking … the media and the public to please respect our family’s privacy while we are mourning and while making arrangements for our mother’s funeral,” the statement read. issued by Attorney BJay Pak, a former U.S. Attorney General for the Northern District of Georgia, said.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, her sons described their mother, a 63-year-old licensed massage therapist, as a hard worker. She was excited to return to work after being fired last year amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Robert Peterson, 38, told the newspaper that his mother was the kind of caring person who would send him flowers, food or gifts with the remaining money she saved. She loved movies, reading and soap operas.
“My mother did nothing wrong,” Peterson added. And she deserves the recognition that she is a human being, a community person like everyone else. None of the people deserved what happened to them. ”
Yue’s grandson, 24-year-old Alijah Peterson, also praised his grandmother in a tribute on Facebook on Wednesday, calling her ‘someone who saw my mistakes … and always let me know a real friend’.
“You made me such a better person, things I thought were not wrong, you corrected in my interest,” Peterson wrote along with a photo of the couple. ‘I love you forever and you did not deserve it. Beware and protect my grandmother. ”