Why is Crystal, Minnesota so murdery?

Crystal sits in Hennepin County, Minnesota, and the hosts introduce it with a small joke about spelling: "This is in Crystal, Minnesota, with a C." The facts note that Crystal Lake Township is named for Crystal Lake, the lake it surrounds. Population as told in 2023: 23,143.

The twelve murders within twenty-five miles arrive in seven episodes across seven towns, and they are spread thin. One happened in Crystal itself; the rest sit at twelve, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen and twenty-three miles. The years are just as scattered, 1978, 1980, 1989, 1993, 2000, 2008 and 2021, so this is not one bad decade but a steady drift of cases around the same corner of the state.

One episode carries the count: episode 16 has five victims, close to half the total. Episode 287 has two, and the other five episodes have one each. Crystal therefore does not top a league of murderous towns so much as sit at the centre of a wide catchment. It counts the show's cases, not crime statistics. The show picks the towns.