Why is the Carmel, Maine area so murdery, by episodes?

Carmel sits in Penobscot County, Maine, a town of 2,828 about twenty minutes from Bangor, named for Mount Carmel. It ranks 43rd overall and second in Maine, and it is the sort of small place where a bowling trip with her children, her mother and her stepfather counts as a family reunion.

The Carmel area's six murders arrive in three episodes, and they are not spread evenly. Episode 653 carries four of them, all in Carmel itself, running from July 1977 to April 2000. One is that bowling outing in October 1982; the others fall in 1996 and 2000, which puts four cases across more than two decades in one small town.

The other two are single killings further out. Episode 522 goes to Old Town, seventeen miles away, for one in 2013, and episode 210 goes twenty-four miles to Hartland for one from 1999.