JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) - A Joplin businessman who has been cleared for any involvement in a serial killing in New Mexico said having his name attached to the case has been a nightmare that has seriously damaged his reputation.
Police in New Mexico said Ron Erwin, 58, of Joplin is no longer being investigated in the deaths of 11 women whose bodies were discovered in 2009 buried in a desert mesa, The Joplin Globe reported (http://bit.ly/pR7xiP ).
Erwin was never charged in the case and Sgt. Tricia Hoffman of the Albuquerque police department would not say why Erwin was investigated. She said the investigation into the deaths continues.
"Why he was a suspect - that's all in sealed warrants, that's still part of our pending investigation," Hoffman said in a phone interview with the Globe. "But, at this point, we've been able to eliminate him as a viable suspect."
Investigator from New Mexico showed up at Erwin's business in Joplin armed with search warrants in August 2010.
"There's an old "Twilight Zone' episode," Erwin said, referring to the fantasy thriller TV series that began in the 1950s, "where a man wakes up to the world he's always known and suddenly nobody recognizes him and he's running around trying to say, "Don't you remember me? I've known you for 40 years,' and all this.
"Well, that's what my life's been in that time," he said during the interview at the office of Joplin attorney Phil Glades.
Albuquerque police have never questioned him in the case, Erwin said.
"They didn't come here to talk," he said of the day his properties were searched.
Erwin spent the better part of a year trying to prove his innocence behind the scenes. He hired lawyers in Joplin and New Mexico to advise him, even though he never faced charges. He declined interview requests.
Erwin also went to Alexandria, Va., in December to have a polygraph examination administered by former FBI polygrapher Barry Colvert. Glades said Colvert determined that Erwin was not being deceptive in his answers regarding the West Mesa murders. The results of that exam were provided to Albuquerque investigators a few months later, Glades said.
An Albuquerque police report says investigators were able to determine that Erwin was not in Albuquerque on the days that three of the victims went missing.
Erwin said his interest in New Mexico started in 1996 when a friend recommended that he visit Albuquerque. A budding photographer, Erwin would go to New Mexico three or four times a year to shoot pictures. He made his last trip to Albuquerque in September 2006.
He said it was a coincidence that the West Mesa murders seem to have stopped about the same time he quit going there.
Erwin lost two houses in the May 22 tornado that struck Joplin. He said coming under suspicion as a possible serial killer has been just as devastating to his personal life.
"There are things that just aren't going to happen," he said. "If I wanted to umpire a Little League baseball game, you know, just all sorts of things you don't even think about, that don't seem so important, but they are. So my life is different here, and I just need to accept that. There really isn't a lot of time for anger. I think it's "I wish it hadn't happened this way."'
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Information from: The Joplin Globe, http://www.joplinglobe.com