Zinkhan 'planned to kill me,' UGA prof writes

University of Georgia professor George Zinkhan's suicide left many questions, but the discovery of a map in his abandoned Jeep has a former colleague convinced she was his next target.

Zinkhan printed directions to the Watkinsville home of Barbara Carroll, an associate professor in the Terry College of Business, on the night before he killed his wife and two men in front of an Athens theater, FBI agents say. Carroll, who worked under Zinkhan from 1994 to 2001, could not be reached for comment, but in an E-mail to Terry College associates said "he [Zinkhan] planned to kill me as well," according to the UGA student newspaper, The Red and Black.

"We'll never know the full story, but I have told you ... that George Zinkhan was dangerous," she wrote. Carroll said she's still living because, "by the grace of God I was at the movies all Saturday afternoon on April 25 after being at school in my office (like a sitting duck) all that morning."

Athens-Clarke County police scheduled a 9 a.m. press conference Tuesday to discuss the Zinkhan case.

Lee Weems, Chief Deputy of the Oconee County Sheriff's Office, said he was contacted by federal investigators hours after Zinkhan's jeep was recovered. By 4 a.m. on May 1, Weems said, deputies had been dispatched to Carroll's home, where they waited for signs of activity.

"There was no way to know what was going on," Weems said. About 4-to-5 hours later, after seeing lights turned on inside the home, they alerted Carroll her life may be in danger.

"We felt it best that she go into hiding," he said, and Carroll agreed, relocating to a motel out of town. "There had been an ongoing problem between them."