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There Are Pieces Missing — Why Now?
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There Are Pieces Missing

CNN says that Authorities: Body of UGA professor identified

(CNN) — The body of a University of Georgia professor accused of killing three people was found Saturday buried in woods near Athens, Georgia, authorities said.

George Zinkhan, 57, is suspected of fatally shooting his wife and two other people last month outside a community theater in Athens, which is home to the University of Georgia.

Cadaver dogs discovered the body with two guns in a wooded area of northwest Clarke County, about a mile from where Zinkhan’s red Jeep Liberty was found last week, Athens-Clarke Police Chief Joseph Lumpkin said.

Athens-Clarke County police confirmed the identity of the body, citing results from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

The guns are like those authorities believe were used in the shootings, Lumpkin said.

The body was found “beneath the earth,” Lumpkin said, without any clothes.

“A person who’s not accustomed to the woods would never have found the body,” he said.

Significant “efforts” were undertaken to conceal the body’s location, Jim Fullington of the GBI said.

So, did he dump the Jeep and bury his body before or after he committed suicide? The police are obviously going to want the time of death established fairly accurately, and are certainly hoping it was after the murders, or they have a major problem.

4 comments

1 Badtux { 05.11.09 at 1:32 am }

The police have a major problem anyhow, given the difficulty of this guy burying himself and then committing suicide. I’m sure they’ll rationalize a way he could have done it to himself, though. Heh.

99% of the time, the obvious guy is the perp. It’s that other 1% of the time that the cops end up with pie on their face, because they stop looking as soon as they identify who they think the obvious perp is…

Badtux´s last blog post..Beautiful day

2 Bryan { 05.11.09 at 2:54 pm }

It is definitely time to re-interview witnesses and start nailing down a timeline.

It is a little better than when they tried to sell 7 gunshot wounds in the back as suicide down here a few years ago, but it does smell.

3 Badtux { 05.11.09 at 4:28 pm }

Oh come now, they have their suspect, their suspect is dead so can’t contradict them, so now they can close the case as “solved” and that’s all that matters, right? I mean, c’mon. Do you want cops to waste even more time chasing a murderer, when there’s more important things to do with their time — like bust some teenage kid smoking pot and confiscate his momma’s car via civil forfeiture and sell it at auction to buy some more cool looking paramilitary gear so they can look cool for their next pot bust? Priorities, my man, priorities! The case is solved, what more do you want?

– Badtux the Cynical Penguin

4 Bryan { 05.11.09 at 5:14 pm }

That’s exactly how things would have been done before Richard Jewell won a major law suit in the Atlanta Olympic bombing case and the University of Georgia wasn’t involved.

The professor’s estate and the estates of the victims will probably get involved if they don’t come up with a reasonable explanation of what happened.

Law enforcement was a lot simpler in Georgia before CNN decided to start up in Atlanta and made local crimes national stories.