Why is Epping, New Hampshire so murdery?

Epping sits in Rockingham County in the far south-east corner of New Hampshire, close enough to Boston to count as somebody else's commuter belt and small enough that the show gives its population as 6,835. It was originally part of Exeter, incorporated in 1741 and named after the Epping in England, which is the sort of fact James and Jimmie like to establish before the unpleasantness starts.

The 14 cases within 25 miles are spread around the town rather than piled on it: two in Epping itself, then Fremont at 3 miles, Deerfield at 11, Dover and Hampton at 15, Salem at 18, and Hooksett and Kittery out at 19. They run from 1964 to 2012, so the show has been coming back to this corner of New England for five decades, and only two of the eight episodes carry three victims each. No single bad year carries the count.

What this measures is the show's case list, not the local crime rate. The hosts choose the towns, and Epping's rank of 46 is really an argument about how many small New England towns sit within a short drive of each other.