Why is Bernardo, New Mexico so murdery, by episodes?

Bernardo is less a town than a wide spot on the map, 50 minutes south of Albuquerque in the Albuquerque basin, where Old Route 66 still runs through and the main point of interest is a wildlife management area full of sandhill cranes. The area has emptied out: nearly twice as many people lived around here 15 years ago. Fewer residents, more cranes.

Everything here rests on a single episode, 331, aired in 2022, which accounts for all four victims. The cases do not stretch across decades. One falls somewhere between 1988 and 1990, the other on 22 November 1992. Two stories, four deaths, one episode.

That is enough for 161st overall and third in New Mexico. Not bad for a place the population has been quietly leaving. A lonely pull-off in a wildlife preserve, a car stopped at the roadside: the sort of spot a wide, empty basin makes room for.