Why is Canyon Lake, California so murdery, by murders?

Canyon Lake is a small town in Riverside County, an hour and a quarter from both Los Angeles and San Diego. It sits around a lake in Railroad Canyon and holds a little over eleven thousand people. Water takes a good share of its four and a bit square miles. James and Jimmie open with the railway, which began working through the canyon in 1880 in pursuit of a line from San Diego to Chicago and got as far as Barstow. Native people warned that the canyon flooded every six months. The track was washed out in 1884, 1916 and 1927, and the company gave up.

The four killings all sit in early 1994, between 14 February and 16 March, and all of them come from episode 70. One episode carries the whole count, which is how a town of this size reaches rank 110 overall and second in California.

Four killings in a single spring, in a town built on water.