Why is St. Augustine, Florida so murdery, by episodes?

The oldest city in the country sits in St. Johns County in north-eastern Florida, about fifty minutes from Jacksonville and more than four hours from Miami. Around 16,518 people live there, and it has held the title of oldest since Spanish settlers arrived in September 1565. It spent two centuries as the capital of Spanish Florida, took the same job under the British in 1763, and remained the territory's capital until the seat moved to Tallahassee.

The whole count comes from one episode, 280, which aired in 2022: eight victims across two cases, one at Christmas 1996 and one running from October 1983 to October 1995. The numbers come from two long, grim stories, and both sit inside the one town.

That is rank 138 overall and third in Florida, a strange distinction for a town this old and this small.