Why is Hot Springs, Montana so murdery, by episodes?

Hot Springs sits in a valley in western Montana, near the Idaho border and about an hour and twenty minutes from Missoula. It began as the settlements of Pineville and Camas in the 1890s and was known as Camas and Camas Hot Springs, after the plant that grows there, before it took its present name. The post office opened in 1913 and the town was incorporated in 1929.

Fire has had a go at Main Street more than once. It burned in 1918 and again in 1931; the sawmill burned and the hospital closed, and after the mercantile burned in the 1980s, falling cattle prices and curtailed logging cut the population to about 400 by 1990. The population is 618 now, with a median household income of $19,659 and a median home price of $224,100. James calls it a pretty place in a valley surrounded by mountains.

The count rests on one episode. Episode 490, from 2024, claimed both murders, one in May 2013 and one in 2020, two victims, 0 miles from the centre. That leaves Hot Springs at 254 overall and third in Montana.