Ex-roommate says Atlanta suspect feared self-harm

Tyler Bayless was a housemate with Robert Aaron Long, the suspect in shootings that left eight people dead in Atlanta, during their time at a coed addiction treatment facility in Roswell, Georgia. According to Bayless, the facility was a halfway house where one could come and go and there were several occasions when Long says he lapsed.

Police investigating the shootings at three Atlanta-area massage businesses say Long described himself as having a "sexual addiction." Bayless described the extreme self-loathing and guilt he witnessed in Long and a public confession that he feared he might harm himself.

"I feel like I'm falling out of God's grace," he recalls Long telling him. Bayless said, "He had some knife that he had I think for when he went hunting. And he's like, 'Hold on to this, because I'm afraid I'm going to hurt myself if I hold on to it myself.'" They lived together at the facility, Maverick Recovery, for a period of at least six months from the fall of 2019 to the end of January or early February 2020.

(Image Credit: AP)