Why is the Edgerton, Kansas area so murdery, by episodes?

Edgerton is a small Johnson County town of 1,901 people, with a bit of Miami County folded in, and it has changed its name four times: Lanesfield, McCamish, Hibbard and Martinsburg, before the railway arrived in 1870 and the chief engineer got the honour. The motto, "global roots, local roots", was picked because the words rhyme. Rank 32 overall and first in Kansas, the Edgerton area takes in three towns: Edgerton itself, Lenexa 16 miles away and Prairie Village 23 miles out, a line of communities running up towards Kansas City.

The count is unevenly shared. One episode, episode 577, covers eight murders in Lenexa between 1984 and 2000, and that single run does most of the work. Episode 489 adds one murder in Edgerton in April 1980, and episode 633 adds two in Prairie Village on 24 October 1995. Eleven murders in three episodes across two decades: a quiet corner of the commuter belt that the show has visited three times and found rather more than it expected.