Why is the Delmar, New York area so murdery, by episodes?

Delmar is a hamlet inside the town of Bethlehem in Albany County, about fifteen minutes outside Albany. By 2004 the local detective bureau had four detectives and no homicide squad, and roughly three murders in forty years behind it. The hotspot runs from Delmar out to Stillwater, a village in Saratoga County twenty-four miles from the centre.

The dates run from February 2000 to 2012. Episode 733 covers a single November day in 2004, with two victims in Delmar itself. Episode 149 has the other three, all in Stillwater, on dates in 2000, March 2010 and 2012. The five deaths only add up across both episodes.

One place is a suburban community beside Albany, the other a village well to the north. Neither expects a murder case.