Zinkhan’s body found in grave he dug

Fugitive murder suspect George Martin Zinkhan III dug his own grave and covered himself with debris before firing a single bullet into his head, investigators said Saturday.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations’ state crime lab confirmed early Saturday evening that the body discovered earlier that day in the woods outside Athens was Zinkhan.

Phil Skinner / pskinner@ajc.com

Athens police cordoned off an area of the Cleveland Road Elementary School playground after reports that a body was found near where George Zinkhan’s car was found.

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“A person not accustomed to the woods would not have found it,” Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Jack Lumpkin said. “The body was beneath the earth… The body was purposely concealed in a manner not to be discovered .”

Searchers found two handguns in the grave.

Zinkhan’s well-hidden body was discovered Saturday by cadaver dogs — an Australian shepherd and a German Shepherd — at 9:50 a.m. Saturday. The civilian Alpha Search and Rescue Team was working woods beyond the initial search area.

Zinkhan’s temporary grave was in thick woods about 1,000 yards from an elementary school and about a mile from where his red Jeep Liberty was recovered more than a week ago. Zinkhan’s home in Bogart in Clarke County is not far away.

The playground at Cleveland Road Elementary School was cordoned off since the grave was only about 1,000 yards away. On Saturday afternoon, a short distance away, toddlers and their parents were attending a birthday party at the school’s gym.

Aaron Clanton, a teacher at the school, arrived around 10:40 a.m. for his son’s party that was supposed to take place at the school playground. Clanton said police were already on the scene.

Jim Fullington, special agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations’ Athens office, said the body was clothed much like the way Zinkhan was described the last time he was seen.

The police chief said this was the second time in his 35 years in law enforcement that he had encountered a suicide victim who buried themselves first.

The body has tentatively been identified as Zinkhan’s. The medical examiner at the State Crime Lab, a unit of the GBI, will use dental records to make the final identification later Saturday.

University President Michael F. Adams, in a statement to the UGA community, thanked law enforcement agencies that worked on the investigation and again offered condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the shooting.

“Our hearts go out to each of them as they try to bring closure to and cope with the pain and sorrow these losses of life have caused them,” Adams said. “May they ultimately find healing and peace.”

Zinkhan, 57, was the subject of a nationwide manhunt since April 25 when three people were shot dead at Athens Community Theatre near the university campus — Zinkhan’s estranged wife, Marie Bruce, and Ben Teague and Tom Tanner.

All three were members of the Town & Gown Players. They were attending a luncheon with a few dozen current and former members that afternoon.

Witnesses said an argument ensued between Bruce and Zinkhan, who left the party. He returned with two handguns and started shooting, hitting Bruce, Tanner and Teague multiple times.

Zinkhan, a respected professor of marketing at UGA’s Terry School of Business, then went back to his car, and drove his waiting children — daughter, 10, and son, 8 — to a neighbor’s house. Zinkhan asked the neighbor to watch the kids because there was an emergency.

Police believed they caught a break April 30 when they found the Jeep Liberty. But a search by dozens of heavily armed law enforcement officers over more than 1,100 acres of Clarke and Jackson counties failed to locate Zinkhan.

Law enforcement authorities intensified their search for leads in recent days, distributing a GBI sketch of Zinkhan clean shaven and without a beard. The Athens-Clarke County Police Department offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.