Atlanta Shooter Expressed Shame For Sex Addiction, Former Roommate Says

Tyler Bayless, 35, told Reuters that he spent several months living in an Atlanta halfway house for recovering addicts with Robert Aaron Long, 21, who was charged on Wednesday with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in the Tuesday night shootings.

A former roommate of the Georgia man charged with eight murders in attacks at Atlanta-area day spas said the shooter told him of an addiction that compelled him to visit massage parlors seeking sex. Tyler Bayless, 35, told Reuters that he spent several months living in an Atlanta halfway house for recovering addicts with Robert Aaron Long, 21, who was charged on Wednesday with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in the Tuesday night shootings. Bayless, who says he was being treated for drug addiction, said he was in a halfway house named Maverick Recovery with Long in late 2019 and early 2020, and last saw Long last February. He said Long had been treated for sex addiction and that he frequented massage parlors "for explicitly sexual activity." Bayless said Long was "deeply religious" and would become "very emotionally distraught that he frequented these places."