Why is Cape St. Claire, Maryland so murdery?

Cape St. Claire sits outside Annapolis in Anne Arundel County, and it exists because a doctor on a university's staff spent the early 1900s buying farmland to build a community. The first attempt, Persimmon Point, sold a handful of lots before the Depression and never took off. The second worked: after the war the suburbs filled in, and the town now counts 8,762 people.

The 22 murders within 25 miles do not cluster in the town itself, which supplies 3 of them. They are strung around it: 2 in Lothian at 17 miles, 6 in Elkridge at 19, 3 in Middle River at 20, 1 in St Michaels at 21 and 7 in Largo at 24. Six towns, six episodes, reaching towards Baltimore and Washington, with dates from 1979 to 2015.

Two episodes carry most of the count. Episode 621 has 7 victims and episode 61 has 6; episode 61 alone covers a run of killings between 1979 and 1989, mostly of wealthy elderly people who were not robbed. The rest are singles and pairs. Cape St. Claire ranks 15th overall and third in Maryland. This counts the show's cases, not the town's crime rate. The show picks the towns.