Sun Cha Kim was “a fighter.”
After emigrating to the United States from Seoul, South Korea, to provide for her family, the 69-year-old worked “two to three jobs” even though 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 … when you’re happy, I’m happy,” she told her grandchildren during weekly 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 in three massage parlors in the Atlanta area, an attack that has sparked fears of anti-Asian violence. Authorities say Long, who faces several charges, admitted the murders, but insisted his actions were motivated by issues of sexual addiction rather than race.
The Fulton County coroner released the names of four victims shot at the Gold Massage Spa and Aroma Therapy Spa in Atlanta on Friday, including Kim, Soon C. Park, 74, Hyun J. Grant, 51, and 63- Yong A. Yue, one year old. The coroner concluded that Park, Grant and Yue suffered fatal head injuries, while Kim died of a gunshot wound to the chest.
“My grandmother was an angel, making her carry on in such a horrible way is unbearable to think about,” Kim’s granddaughter said in a statement associated with GoFundMe on Friday night. “As an immigrant, all my grandmother has wanted in life has been to grow old with my grandfather and see how her children and grandchildren lived the life she never got to live.”
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office released the names of the other four victims on Wednesday, who were shot in Young’s Asian massage, Long’s first target. According to CCTV, he spent an hour at Young’s in Acworth before the shooting. These victims have been identified as Daoyou Feng, 44; Delaina Ashley Yaun González, a 33-year-old mother who was on a date with her husband; Paul Andre Michels, a 54-year-old businessman who had been married for more than two decades; and Xiaojie Tan, a 49-year-old man who appeared to own at least two massage parlors in Atlanta.
Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, a Hispanic man from Acworth, was shot at Young’s and is currently in the hospital for his injuries.
About an hour later, three people were found dead at the Gold Massage Spa in Atlanta, including Grant. Another person was fatally shot at the Aroma Therapy Spa on the road. Grant’s son Randy Park, 23, told The Daily Beast on Thursday that “she was a single mother of two who devoted her entire life to raising them.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Kim moved to Atlanta more than 15 years ago and lived at Gold Spa at the time of the shooting, where she helped feed and wash clothes for employees.
“She was pure-hearted and the most selfless woman I knew,” Kim’s granddaughter added to GoFundMe. “She represented everything she wanted to be as a woman, without an ounce of hatred or bitterness in her heart. People close to me knew that my grandmother was my rock. ”
“That I was treated like a perfectly healthy old woman for such a heinous crime broke my heart. I will never see her again, but I only have happy memories of her and the beautiful life she lived “, adds the statement.
Although police have not released details about the victims or many details about Long’s alleged shooting, family and friends have provided details to the workers who lost their lives.
Soon, Park’s son-in-law, Scott Lee, said in an interview with him New York News that the 74-year-old woman worked at Gold Spa and “got along very well with her family.” Lee added that he had previously lived in New York, where many of his relatives still live, before moving to Atlanta.
In a statement provided to The Daily Beast, Yong Yue’s two children described their devastation at the loss of their “beloved mother” and said that “words cannot adequately describe our pain.”
“Thank you to all those people who have come to give support and words of encouragement. At this time, given that the case has attracted so much attention, we ask … the media and the public to respect the privacy of our family while we mourn and while we make arrangements for our mother’s funeral. ” statement, issued by attorney BJay Pak, said a former U.S. attorney general for the northern district of Georgia.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, her children described her mother, a 63-year-old licensed massage therapist, as a worker. They were delighted to return to work after being fired last year amid the coronavirus pandemic, they said.
Robert Peterson, 38, told the newspaper that his mother was the kind of worried person who would send someone flowers, food or gifts with the money he had saved. He loved movies, reading, and soap operas.
“My mom didn’t do anything wrong,” Peterson added. “And he deserves the recognition that he is human, that he is a person in the community like everyone else. None of those people deserved what happened to them.
Yue’s grandson, Alijah Peterson, 24, also praised his grandmother in a tribute on Facebook on Wednesday, telling her “someone who saw my mistakes … and always let me know, this requires a true friend “.
“You made me such a better person, things I thought weren’t wrong, that you corrected in my best interest,” Peterson wrote next to a photo of the couple. “I love you forever and you didn’t deserve that. Watch over and protect my grandmother. “