Why is Denio, Nevada so murdery, by episodes?

Denio is a border town, and a small one: twenty to forty seven people at almost 4,100 feet in Humboldt County, right up against Oregon. It began on the Oregon side until the line moved, and took its name from its post office in 1888. After the Second World War the businesses drifted south across the state line, where Nevada offered no income tax, liberal liquor, gambling and liberal prostitution. Its growth industry, historically, was being on the correct side of a survey.

The hotspot is one episode, number 499, and one long story: five victims across two cases, one in June 1978 and one running from 1980 to 2005. Denio's part in it is geography. The town was the last place on the road in; the murders were out in the Black Rock Desert.

Denio ranks 149th overall and third in Nevada, and it is the last outpost before the desert.