Mo. Bizman Targeted in Probe of 11 Dead Women

Police are searching the homes and business of a Missouri man named as a "person of interest" in 11 New Mexico murders. The bodies of 11 women and a fetus were discovered by a hiker in the desert near Albuquerque last year, and police say 57-year-old Ron Erwin, who owns a health food store and photo business, is just one person of many being probed in connection with the killings, the Joplin Globe reports.

Investigators say nearly all of the women are prostitutes who disappeared between 2003 and 2005. Erwin's mother says her son used to travel to Albuquerque regularly for the city's hot-air balloon festival, but he hasn't done so for at least 6 years. "It doesn't make any sense why they would focus on him," she said. "That's the silliest thing I ever heard of." (More Ron Erwin stories.)