Suspect ‘shy, a bit eccentric’

George M. Zinkhan III

“It’s a little depressing,” says Hofacker, a Florida State University business professor who edited a collection of Zinkhan’s poetry for a Web page of the American Marketing Association.

“You don’t run across poetry that deals with academic subjects. I thought it was kind of unique,” Hofacker said. “It was worthy of publishing.”

Zinkhan was active in the association and often helped colleagues, Hofacker said. “He was not a selfish person who tried to advance his own career,” he said.

Police said Zinkhan shot his estranged wife, Marie Bruce, and two associates, Ben Teague and Thomas Tanner, outside the Athens Community Theatre near downtown, where members of an acting company were at a luncheon. Two other people were wounded. He was still at-large through Sunday afternoon.

Various professional profiles list Zinkhan as a graduate of Boys Latin High School in Baltimore. He graduated in 1974 from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. At the University of Michigan he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate.

Zinkhan taught at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Houston before joining the UGA faculty at the Terry School of Business in 1994.

He taught in the school’s Department of Marketing and Distribution and is listed as the Coca-Cola Co. Professor on the school’s Web site. He also taught part time at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where he was honored as an outstanding faculty member.

Efforts to reach university officials for comment Sunday were unsuccessful.

His popularity as a professor was mixed among students. A popular ratings site, ratemyprofessors.com, listed remarks from anonymous students of Zinkhan’s.

“I went to every single class and was bored out of my mind,” one poster said in August. “I studied my butt off and still couldn’t do well. Get out while you still can!”

“Witty guy, some information useful,” another said in February 2008. “But he demonstrated himself to be cold hearted and just plain nasty when I needed help. Stay away from this man.”

Content to the site has since been restricted after pranksters flooded the site with messages.

Zinkhan edited the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science from 2003 to 2006, and also wrote or contributed to five books on marketing and commerce.

He gave a copy of one of his books, a co-written work called “Consumers,” to Teague as a gift over dinner at a Lenox Square restaurant.

Zinkhan and his wife, attorney Bruce, purchased their Chesterfield Road home in 1999 for $228,000, according to Athens-Clarke County property tax records. Neighbors recalled rarely seeing Zinkhan, and rarely spoke to him when they did. One Chesterfield Road resident said the casually dressed Zinkhan looked more like a landscaper.

Shy and a bit eccentric, Zinkhan was not one to stand out in a crowd, Hofacker said.

He recalled a conference at Texas A&M university and a reception for the attendees, academics and marketing experts. Zinkhan walked in and sat at a piano in a corner, away from the others.

“He was very understated. He played lovely piano music for about a half hour. It made everything pleasant.” Hofacker said.