Why is Carr, Colorado so murdery, by episodes?

Carr is a railroad town of 560 people on the Wyoming border northeast of Denver, put on the map by the Union Pacific and named for the company man who ran the line through it. A limestone fort nearby saw plenty of fighting between the Crow and Blackfeet long before the railroad came, and the town itself filled up after gold turned up on the South Platte in 1858.

All nine murders come from a single episode, episode 242, and they are not spread thin: four case dates fall between August 1971 and June 1972, with nine victims between them. The overview describes a family from Athens, Texas, that drifted across the south-west taking ranch hand and carnival work, the women waiting tables, and topping up its wages with robbery.

That is enough for 130th overall and second in Colorado: one bad year in a town of 560, rather than a long habit.