Why is Bloomingdale, Illinois so murdery?

Bloomingdale is a village of about 22,000 in DuPage County, some thirty miles west of Chicago: commuter country, with an 1833 settler story and a borrowed rifle returned on the day promised. Its rank comes from the ring around it, not the village. Of the 23 murders the show counts within 25 miles, three happened in Bloomingdale itself; the rest sit in Elk Grove Village, Streamwood, Villa Park, Arlington Heights, Oak Park, Palos Park and Libertyville, none more than 24 miles out. Nine episodes, nine towns, ninth overall and fourth in Illinois.

The cases run from 1966 to 2007, with a cluster around 1980 and another in the mid-1990s, so this is a slow drip across four decades rather than one bad year. Episode 184 alone carries eight victims, more than a third of the total; seven other cases add one or three each. Take that episode out and the suburbs look ordinary, which is roughly the point.

Worth saying plainly: this counts the show's cases, not the region's crime rate. James and Jimmie pick the towns, and a quiet suburb with one strange story gets picked.