Why is Edgerton, Kansas so murdery?

Edgerton sits in Johnson County, with a sliver of Miami County, at the Kansas City end of Kansas. Four names came before Edgerton, the last borrowed from a railway engineer in 1870, and the motto was chosen because the two words rhyme. Population 1,901. Of the eleven murders within twenty five miles, exactly one happens in the town itself: episode 489, a single victim, April 1980.

The neighbours supply the rest. Episode 577 in Lenexa, sixteen miles away, covers 1984 to 2000 and carries eight victims by itself. Episode 633 in Prairie Village, twenty three miles off, adds two from October 1995. So the count is not many episodes adding up; it is one episode with a heavy load and two with a single case each. Three episodes, three towns, eleven victims.

Worth being plain: this is a league table of the show's cases, not of crime. James and Jimmie choose the towns, and a small place inside the orbit of a bigger one will keep turning up on the map.