Why is the Dumfries, Virginia area so murdery, by episodes?

Ranked 88 overall and third in Virginia, the Dumfries area is two towns six miles apart in northern Virginia, about 40 minutes from Washington DC. Dumfries itself, in Prince William County, was established on 60 acres and named after the Scottish town. It became colonial America's second port, taking tobacco and rivalling New York, Philadelphia and Boston. James and Jimmie put the 2023 population at 5,669, a long way from that.

Episode 397 covers a nine-year-old boy who disappeared from Dumfries on 22 May 1979, living with his grandparents in a mobile home while a divorce was settled, and returns for a second case in June 1990. Episode 298 goes six miles to Woodbridge, where two people were killed in a case dated 2 January 2001: a counter-intelligence contractor whose marriage had gone flat, and a 30-year-old mother of two he met at a steakhouse in Crystal City.

Four murders, two episodes, two in each town. No single case brings a crowd: a disappearance, a second case eleven years on, a pair in Woodbridge in 2001. The tie is the commute, a colonial port and its neighbour six miles away, with Washington 40 minutes off.