Why is Cottonwood, California so murdery, by episodes?

Rank 189 overall and third in California, Cottonwood is a small place, and all three of its murders arrived in one episode. The town sits inland in Shasta County, between Redding and Red Bluff, and began in 1849 as a stagecoach stop where travellers stocked up with supplies and food before the long push towards the Gold Rush and the Oregon Trail. The first post office opened in 1852. The population in 2022 was 3,280.

The murders come from episode 292, which aired in 2022, and the cases sit close together in the late 1990s, running from 1996 to May 1998. That is one story with three victims, told once, in a town whose past is mostly the sort you would put on a plaque.