Why is the Florence, Arizona area so murdery, by episodes?

The Florence area sits in south central Arizona, down in Pinal County and about an hour from Phoenix, on land south of the Gila River that Native people had farmed for centuries before Mexican settlers started farming there in the 1850s. Florence was founded in 1866, is the sixth-oldest non-Native American settlement in Arizona, and counted 26,066 people in 2020. Silver turned up nearby in 1877 and the town boomed for a while, but the railroad never arrived, silver prices collapsed in the 1890s, and the mine closed in 1912, the year Arizona became a state.

The area reaches out across the desert to Apache Junction, 23 miles away beside the Superstition Mountains, and to Casa Grande, also 23 miles. Three episodes, nine murders, three towns, with cases running from 1972 to 2004.

Episode 224 carries six of the nine on its own, three cases in Apache Junction, among them a February 1987 case that began at a remote campground in barren desert, cold at night and a long walk from anywhere. Episode 159 adds two in Florence, from 1972 and January 1984, and episode 549 one in Casa Grande in December 2004.