Why is Apache Junction, Arizona so murdery?

Apache Junction sits forty minutes south of downtown Phoenix, a desert suburb beside the Superstition Mountains and the road out to Apache Lake. James and Jimmie were careful to say the murder in episode 224 happened away from the town proper, at a campground that in February 1987 was remote, barren and cold at night. That episode alone carries six of the eight murders counted within 25 miles.

The other two come from Florence, 23 miles away, in episode 159: an hour from Phoenix, a silver town that faded once the railroad failed to arrive. The dates inside the two episodes run from 1972 to 1987, so this is less a cluster in one decade than a long acquaintance. The town's own history goes back further: a mining camp called Youngburg, now a ghost town, with gold first talked about in 1864 and samples only produced in 1879.

Worth saying plainly that this counts the show's cases, not local crime figures. Eight murders, two episodes and a population of 38,452 as the hosts told it in 2021: the ranking measures what the show chose to cover, and it chose this corner of the desert twice.