Why is Clearview, Washington so murdery?

Clearview is less a town than a wide spot on old timberland half an hour north of Seattle, platted in 1913 and named in 1931 for its view of the mountains. Snohomish County spent 1861 moving its county seat about, with Clearview holding it briefly before the government went off to Cadyville and then Snohomish, and a later election to haul it to Everett was riddled with illegal voting. Local government has never been the calm part.

The show's eight murders within 25 miles are spread thin across the map. Episode 113 supplies four of them in Clearview itself, with cases dated 1974 and 1982. Episode 583 adds three from Kirkland, ten miles away, from the summer of 1990, and episode 624 adds a single case from Freeland, 23 miles off, in 2003. Three episodes, three towns, one carrying half the count.

That is a commuter belt being sampled, not a crime wave being measured. These are the show's cases, and the show chooses the towns; the county's actual statistics are somebody else's problem. James and Jimmie just know where the stories are.