Why is the Bellaire, Ohio area so murdery, by episodes?

Bellaire is a small town on the Ohio River in far eastern Ohio, around 3,900 people now that the glassworks have gone. Five miles away, across the water, is Wheeling, West Virginia. It sits in the northern panhandle, about an hour from Pittsburgh, and its population peaked in 1930 and has been shrinking since. Between them they make up the Bellaire area, and they account for six murders.

Four of the six come from one episode, which covers two cases a long way apart: one in November 1948, one in August 2018. The other two belong to a Bellaire case from the end of September 1995, when the town's high school football team was unbeaten. The decades run 1948, 1995, 2018, with long gaps in between, so most of the weight sits in that single Wheeling episode.

Six murders across two episodes puts the Bellaire area 70th overall and third in Ohio. That is a lot of history for one stretch of river.