Why is the Raeford, North Carolina area so murdery, by episodes?

Raeford sits in Hoke County in south-central North Carolina, ninety minutes from Raleigh and two hours from Charlotte. It grew out of an old cotton field where a few families lived in 1898. The Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad reached the settlement the next year and the town grew around it. The population is 4,859, median household income is $33,266, and the property crime rate is nearly double the national average.

Twelve miles away, over the Robeson County line, Red Springs is smaller at about 3,400 people and poorer. Median household income there is $19,868 against $54,000 nationally. Between them the two towns hold the hotspot's five murders, and every case falls inside a five-year window: August 1980, September 1983, October 1983, one more in 1983, and November 1985.

No single night accounts for all five. Episode 102 has three victims and episode 155 has two, and the count builds one case at a time across two railroad towns twelve miles and one county line apart, all of it inside half a decade. Raeford ranks 85th overall and third in North Carolina, a lot of attention for a place this size.