The Red and Black

Issue date: 5/13/09 Section: News

Media Credit: WAITES LASETER Major Mark Sizemore of the Athens-Clarke County Police (left) and Jim Fullington of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation address the media during a news conference Tuesday morning. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: WAITES LASETER Major Mark Sizemore of the Athens-Clarke County Police answers a question as University Police Chief Jimmy Williamson looks on. [Click to enlarge]

ACC media release

His motive remains unclear and any pre-planning hasn't been found, but the end of George Zinkhan's life is not in dispute. On the run after killing his wife and two others, the former University professor dug a hole 15 to 18 inches deep, pulled a weathered pallet covered with brush and dirt over himself, and shot himself in the head with a .38 caliber revolver.

Law enforcement officials from Athens-Clarke County and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation gathered Tuesday morning to address lingering questions concerning the triple murders on April 25 at the hands of Zinkhan. Though they confirmed Zinkhan has been dead for at least five days, they could not say if he killed himself the day of the murders, nor did they find a suicide note.

"It's not an exact science like it appears to be on TV, but the autopsy determined he had been dead for at least five days," Jim Fullington of the GBI said Tuesday. "The range we are left with is he had been dead for five to 14 days which was the last day he was seen alive."

"In a search of the woods there was no evidence of someone being there over time, no food water anything like that," Major Mark Sizemore of the ACC police said. "There was a bottle of water still in the Jeep that would indicate he had not been out there over a longer period of time."

There were no signs Zinkhan had any help either with the murders or his suicide, Fullington said, and many of the contents that spilled around his body were seen with him on the day of the murders. Aside from the revolver, a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol, a grey Puma sports bag Zinkhan was seen carrying at the murder scene, a grey sweatshirt, a shovel and a box of ammunition were found hidden in the hole with Zinkhan.

"It would have been very difficult for anyone to locate on foot," Sizemore said. "On Friday (the day before Zinkhan was discovered) I was seven feet away from where he was found. He used a pallet covered with dirt and brush that was pulled over the hole. The pallet there appeared to be weathered and been outdoors for a long time. He was completely covered."

As for the crime itself, officials revealed new details. On that sunny April day, Zinkhan killed his wife Marie Bruce, former University faculty member Tom Tanner, and Ben Teague at the Athens Community Theatre on Grady Avenue after a fight erupted between Zinkhan and Bruce outside the theater.

The two were undergoing marital problems, Fullington said, but it was Tanner who was the first one shot.

"The investigation reveals that Tanner was a specific target we don't have anything to indicate Ben Teague was a specific target other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Fullington said. "Evidence indicates it is a domestic related homicide. There were marital difficulties taken place that were documented and we feel it the shootings were because of that."

"There was some verbal contact between George Zinkhan and his wife outside the theater, and he did have his children outside of the car," Fullington continued. "He took his children back to the car that was parked out of view of where the shootings took place. He returned with the guns and did the shootings and returned to the vehicles."

He returned to his home on Chesterfield Road and dropped off his children with a neighbor. He made a stop at his home before disappearing in his 2005 Jeep Liberty.

The Jeep was found April 30 in a deep ravine less than two miles from his home. In the vehicle was Zinkhan's wallet, passport, laptop, cash, cell phone and a map with directions to the house of a fellow professor at Terry College. The directions to the home of Barbara Carroll, an associate professor who worked in Zinkhan's same department at Terry, spurred law enforcement to ensure her safety.

"We received information out of the Jeep of documents indicating a map to another individual's house, " Sizemore said. "She was advised of the situation and given an opportunity to make a decision that was appropriate for her."

The map was printed out on April 24, but "there is nothing to indicate that he went there or any intention to commit any acts," Fullington said.

Police continue to look through Zinkhan's computers, both at home and at work, to see if there is any indication of premeditation. So far they haven't found any answers.

"We are still looking at all the information from all of his computers," Fullington said. "There is nothing to indicate, handwritten or on the computers, any kind of suicide note or farewell, There's nothing to indicate any elaborate plans for what he was gonna do leading up to the day of the shooting. There is documentation and facts that they were having marital difficulties . . . they were going through specific processes to try and address the difficulties."

"We have not received any kind of communication to indicate why he did some of the things he did," Fullington added.

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