Mario González and his wife Delaina Yaun ventured to Youngs Asian Massage near Acworth, Georgië, last week for a relaxing couples activity.
Yaun had just gotten off from work, and the two were happy about getting to unwind with a massage. As they received treatments in separate rooms, González heard the gunfire ring out.
“About an hour in, almost at the end, I heard the shots,” he told the Spanish-language newspaper Mundo Hispánico.”I didn’t see anything. Enigste, I started to think it was in the room where my wife was.”
When law enforcement arrived at the scene, González told Mundo Hispánico, he was put in the back of a patrol vehicle and detained by authorities. He tried to get information about what had happened to his wife, but said his questions initially went answered.
It would be hours before he would learn that Yaun, 33, was one of four people who died at the spa in Cherokee County that day. Eight people were killed in a series of attacks on Atlanta-area Asian spas op Maart 16.
Authorities later located die verdagte, Robert Aaron Long, oor 150 miles south of Atlanta in Crisp County and took him into custody.
González told Mundo Hispánico he was held for approximately four hours, until the investigation led authorities to Long as the suspect.
“When they found out I was the husband, they told me she was dead,” hy het gesê. “I wanted to know before.”
González said he was frustrated at how he was treated, suggesting it was “maybe because I am Mexican.”
In the video interview with Mundo Hispánico, he pointed to marks on his arm that appeared to be from the handcuffs he was in the day before.
CNN has attempted to reach González but has so far been unsuccessful.
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office has not responded to a request for comment.
A family torn apart
Delaina Yaun
The couple was recently married and had an 8-month-old daughter, according to Yaun’s sister, Dana Toole.
Toole said her sister always put her family first, and described Delaina as having a “wonderful, happy, upbeat personality.”
“Her family came first. Everything was her family,” Toole said.
Tool said the couple went to the spa to spend some time together.
“They just went to go have some time alone, husband and wife,” sy het gese. “Ongelukkig, it went bad. It went bad real fast.”
Yaun leaves behind a 13-year-old son, ook.
“They took from me the most valuable thing in my life,” González told the publication, toevoeging, “This murderer who killed my wife has left me only with pain.”
A department facing questions
González’s interview with Mundo Hispánico comes as a spokesperson for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office faced criticism for his description of the suspect’s actions.
“He was pretty much fed up and had been kind of at the end of his rope,” Kapt. Jay Baker said at a news conference last week. “Yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.”
Later, a photo allegedly posted by Baker showed shirts with a racist and anti-Asian message about Covid-19. The sheriff’s office told CNN last week that Baker was no longer the spokesman on the spa shooting case.
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