Authorities were on a nationwide manhunt for a marketing professor in the shooting deaths of three people Saturday at a community theater near the University of Georgia.

Athens-Clarke County Police Capt. Clarence Holeman said the shooter was the ex-husband of one of the people killed, Marie Bruce, who was in her 40s. Police were looking for George Zinkhan, 57, who has been a professor at the university in Athens since the 1990s.

The other victims were a male in his 40s and another male in his 60s. The three were shot multiple times, Athens-Clarke County Coroner Sonny Wilson said.

Police were called to the Athens Community Theater less than a mile (about 1 kilometer) from campus about 12:25 p.m. and found three people shot to death outside, Holeman said. Two others were hit by shrapnel, and their conditions were not immediately known, Holeman said.

The shooting happened as local actors were gathered at the theater before an evening performance. Holeman said there was some sort of discussion, possibly a disagreement, between the shooter and one of the victims when the shooting took place. Holeman said a motive wasn't immediately known.

Two different guns were involved in the shooting, and neither was recovered at the scene, Holeman said. Investigators searched Zinkhan's house Saturday afternoon.

Authorities issued a nationwide alert for Zinkhan and his 2005 red Jeep Liberty with a Georgia license plate.

"Anyone who shoots three people is dangerous, that's the best way I can put it," Holeman said.

Dana Adams lives across the street from Zinkhan and said his two children played with hers.

Adams said she didn't know Zinkhan well and described him as "kind of a strange character," who would sometimes walk off in the middle of a conversation. "But I would never suspect this," Adams said.

Zinkhan has been a professor in the Terry College of Business, university spokesman Pete Konenkamp said. He didn't have any disciplinary problems.

"His track record is impeccable as far as his teaching credentials," Konenkamp said. "He's a respected professor on campus."

The university issued a campus-wide alert as a precaution.

In a statement, university President Michael F. Adams said the university community was shocked and saddened.

"Our first thoughts are for safety of the university community and for prompt apprehension of the person responsible," Adams said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all those who have been affected."

Before joining the faculty at the University of Georgia, Zinkhan held academic positions at the universities of Houston and Pittsburgh. He has a doctorate from the University of Michigan and graduated from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in 1974.

Tom Reichert, a professor at the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, knew Zinkhan from around the campus.

"This is a total shock," Reichert said. "I wouldn't say he was particularly vivacious or particularly quiet. He was right down the middle."

___

Associated Press writers Shannon McCaffrey, Walter Putnam, Bernard McGhee and Daniel Yee in Atlanta contributed to this report.