Why is Marion, Indiana so murdery, by episodes?

Marion sits in east central Indiana, in Grant County, named after a Revolutionary War general, with a War of 1812 battle fought north of town in December 1812. It made its living as an agricultural trading centre with a forest industry until the 1880s, when natural gas under the county set off a boom, and for two seasons around 1900 it had a baseball team called the Glass Blowers. Population as told in 2022: 27,674.

The hotspot is thin: episode 260, from 2022, covers a killing in May 1966, and episode 523, from 2024, covers one on 2 July 2009. Two episodes, two murders, one town, which puts Marion 124th overall and third in Indiana. Each case took one life: a woman who grew up in Tennessee and came north to Marion at seventeen to marry, and a woman who moved to Indiana for work and lived for a time in Swayzee. Neither episode carries the count on its own. Two of them do, 43 years apart.

Third in Indiana is a podium place of sorts; 124th overall is the truer picture. Two killings in 43 years is not much of a rampage, even for a town of 27,674.