Zinkhan’s passport found in Jeep

It appears increasingly unlikely that triple-murder suspect George Zinkhan III has left the country.

The passport belonging to the UGA marketing professor, on the run since allegedly gunning down his wife and two men on April 25 in Athens, was among the items police found in his abandoned 2005 Jeep Liberty on Friday.

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“That’s a fact,” Athens-Clarke County Police Capt. Clarence Holeman confirmed Monday morning. “It was in the car.”

Asked what it means to investigators, Holeman said, “It simply means he can’t fly overseas. He can’t leave the country.”

Zinkhan had been issued a ticket from Delta Air Lines to fly to Amsterdam from Atlanta this past Saturday. Federal agents staked out the gate at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport but that flight came and went without Zinkhan aboard. Zinkhan had a part-time teaching position at Free University in The Netherlands and the school had purchased the ticket for him.

Police believe Zinkhan ditched his sport-utility vehicle, found in a wooded area along Cleveland Road in Bogart, not long after the murders near downtown Athens. Police responded to the shooting — which resulted in the deaths of Zinkhan’s wife, Marie Bruce, and friends, Tom Tanner and Ben Teague — at 12:25 p.m. on April 25. Zinkhan dropped off his preadolescent children at a neighbor’s house in Bogart about 10 minutes later. His vehicle was found Friday in a ravine about 2.5 miles away.

Holeman said police had no new leads Monday morning and that Zinkhan still has not been spotted.