Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It is Thursday, March 18th.

Let's get straight to the news. The suspect arrested in the murder spree at the three spas in Atlanta has been charged.

21-year-old Robert Long faces eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault.

Police say he killed four people inside one spa, three people inside another, and one

person inside a third. Officials say he was arrested while on the way to Florida to possibly

carry out more attacks. Six of the eight victims were Asian women, leading to speculation that

the spree may have been part of a rise in anti-Asian

hate since the coronavirus pandemic. But yesterday, officials offered another possible motive.

The suspect did take responsibility for the shootings. He said that early on once we began the interviews with him.

He claims that these, and as the chief said, this is still early, but he does claim that it was

not racially motivated. He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex conviction, and sees

these locations as something that allows him to go to these places and it's a

temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate. So obviously whatever the motivation was for this guy,

we know that many of the victims, the majority of the victims were Asian. We also know that this

is an issue that's happening across the country. It is unacceptable. It is hateful. And it has to

stop. Let's go right down to Atlanta. NBC News correspondent Blaine Alexander's been covering the story for us.

Blaine, good morning. We know that six of the eight women were Asian killed inside these spas a couple of nights ago.

What more did we learn at that briefing and what have we known since then?

Well, Willie, good morning to you. We certainly learned a lot during yesterday's briefing.

You heard from what some law enforcement officials say the suspect told them in the hours after he was taken into custody. Now, a couple of things that I do want to highlight that I think really kind of stood out yesterday. One was just the way in which he was captured. You know, we know that this kind of spread out over this stunning almost 200

miles stretch. The suspect really did cover a lot of ground when you think about the three spas

and then the fact that he was ultimately captured about two hours to the south of where I am. I think

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