Why is the Gans, Oklahoma area so murdery, by episodes?

The Gans area is three towns in the far eastern corner of Oklahoma, where the state gives way to Arkansas. Gans itself is a dispersed rural place of 336 people in Sacoya County, grown from agriculture and once part of the Cherokee Nation's Sacoya district; its post office has carried the name since 1896. Van Buren lies 20 miles away, Poteau 23, the latter about three hours from Oklahoma City and four from Dallas. What ties them is the corner itself: small towns on either side of a state line, close enough that a county seat and a newspaper town pass as neighbours.

The nine murders fall in a tight stretch of the 1980s, between 1981 and 1986, and they do not spread evenly. Episode 641, from Poteau, carries six of them over two cases in 1984 and 1986. Episode 365 adds two from 1981, and episode 435 one from a Fourth of July in 1982.

So the state's top hotspot, 35th overall, rests on one crowded episode and a pair of quieter ones. A very small town with a very long ledger.