Why is the Conway, South Carolina area so murdery, by murders?

Conway is in Horry County in northeastern South Carolina, and it is one of the oldest towns in the state. The county got its courthouse in 1801; the town became Conway Borough in honour of a general, then Conway in 1883 because the full name was too long. About 26,620 people live there. Within ten miles the hotspot takes in Nixonville, an unincorporated community twenty minutes from Myrtle Beach, and Socastee. Those three make up the Conway area: a courthouse town and two neighbours within a short drive of one another.

The cases run across three decades. November 1991 in Conway itself, April 2005 and November 2013 in Nixonville, December 2013 in Socastee. Five murders in three episodes. Episode 537 carries three of them across its two cases; episodes 294 and 445 carry one each. 2013 appears twice.

Nixonville was cut off for a long time by rivers, swamps and ocean, and locals once called Horry County the independent Republic of Horry. By the 2000s retired people and second-home owners were arriving, and gunshots were common enough that neighbours did not always notice. By its own account it is a quiet rural place.