Who is Tyler Bayless? Robert Aaron Long's ex-roommate, 35, says spa shooter felt 'shame' at sex addiction rehab
Robert Aaron Long brought a Bible to school every day and had developed a deep sense of 'shame' over his addiction to sex and pornography, for which he sought treatment in rehab, his friends and former roommates revealed in a Daily Mail report.
The Georgia massage parlor shooter murdered eight people including six Asian women on Tuesday, March 16, at three different parlors in a three-hour killing spree in Atlanta. Sources revealed that he was at Maverick Recovery, a halfway house sometime in late 2019-early 2020. He was in treatment for sex addiction and one Tyler Bayless, who stayed there with him for six months, revealed that every time Long visited a spa or a massage parlor he called it a "relapse" and felt "shame".
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Who is Tyler Bayless?
Bayless, 35, told Reuters that he and Long were living at the Atlanta halfway house for recovering addicts for several months. Bayless, who was being treated for drug addiction, said he last saw Long last February at the center, which has now removed all of its websites and social media pages and is not taking any inquiries. On Wednesday, March 17, Long was charged with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in the March 16 night shootings.
The former roommate said Long had been treated for sex addiction and that he frequented massage parlors for "explicitly sexual activity." He said Long was "deeply religious" and would become ''very emotionally distraught that he frequented these places." In the halfway house he would describe several of his sexual addiction "relapses" as he called them. He would have a deep feeling of remorse and shame and say "he needed to return to prayer and to return to God" he is quoted as saying in the report.
“He would say, ‘I’ve done it again’ and it just ate away at him,” said Bayless. “He felt absolutely merciless remorse,” he said in a Daily Beast report, adding that Long is a Christian and it fueled his self-hatred. Long's father is a youth minister and an enthusiastic member of a South Baptist church. "He was big into religion," another friend shared. “When I saw the headlines, my mind went straight to him, because those were the places he would frequent,” Bayless said. He added that Bayless says Long spent very little time online and "didn't even have a cell phone."
During his confession to the police, the 21-year-old Atlanta spa shooter had admitted that he was struggling with sexual addiction and frequented the spas where the mass shooting had taken place.
