Why is the Bartlesville, Oklahoma area so murdery, by episodes?

Bartlesville straddles two counties, Washington and Osage, in the north-eastern corner of Oklahoma. Dewey sits four miles away, about fifteen miles from the Kansas border and fifty minutes from Tulsa, and in the early 1980s it held roughly 3,500 people. The two towns are tied by more than proximity: the miller who had a grist mill modified to produce flour went on to Dewey, opened a store and helped create that town.

The Bartlesville area's three murders fall on three dates across eight years: August 1982 and December 1989 at Dewey, June 1990 at Bartlesville. Episode 100 carries two of them; episode 154 carries the third, a long marriage, three sons under seven and a household that had run into trouble.

Two episodes and three murders put the hotspot 94th overall and second in Oklahoma. Modest numbers for a pair of towns this size, but tidy ones: a small town, its larger neighbour four miles on, and eight years doing the damage.