Why is the Harrington, Delaware area so murdery, by episodes?

Harrington is a railroad junction in central Delaware, in Kent County, a trading centre for the farmland around it: about 3,730 people on ground that was once 6,000 acres of forest and went by Clark's Corner. Eight episodes landed within 25 miles, fourteen murders between them, in towns from Houston four miles out to Laurel twenty-four miles south. The radius runs well past the town.

The dates are spread out. Three episodes come from the second half of the 1970s, three from the mid and late 1980s, then one in 1991 and one in 2001. The murders are spread across the eight: the largest case, episode 208, has three victims at Houston, and the rest are pairs and singles.

The area around Harrington is farmland and small crossroads. Cheswold, Kenton, Houston, Bridgeville and Marydel all sit within twenty-odd miles of the centre, with Dover seventeen miles off and Laurel down in Sussex County's sweet potato country. None of them is large.