Why is the Easton, Maryland area so murdery, by murders?

Easton is in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It has been a courthouse town since 1710, took its name from Easton in England and was settled by Quakers. The Easton area means Easton itself and St Michaels, eight miles away: two small towns on the same shore, close enough that a farm outside one and a town eight miles down the road feel like the same patch. It ranks 225th overall and third in Maryland.

The count is two murders in two episodes, one in each town, from 1987 and 1998. They are two separate stories eleven years apart, so the total is simply the two of them.

Episode 231 goes back to January 1987, when a sixty-four-year-old woman was killed. She lived alone on a farm outside Easton, was wealthy and private, and was active in the county historical society, a museum shop and a riding programme for disabled children. Episode 137 lands in St Michaels in February 1998, where a man in his thirties was killed. He had trained in golf course maintenance and married in 1989.