Why is Florence, Arizona so murdery?

Florence sits in south central Arizona, in Pinal County, about an hour from Phoenix: a small town south of the Gila River, on land Native people had farmed for centuries before Mexican settlers began farming there in the 1850s. It was laid out in 1866 and is the sixth-oldest non-Native American settlement in Arizona. Silver turned up nearby in 1877 and the town boomed; then the railroad never arrived, silver prices collapsed, and by 1912 the mine had closed. Population 26,066.

The show's nine murders within 25 miles arrive in just three episodes, and only two happened in Florence itself. Episode 159 covers a January 1984 case in the town. The heaviest is episode 224, six victims, at a campground on Apache Lake in the desert, Apache Junction the nearest populated place at 23 miles. Episode 549 adds one more, from December 2004, near Casa Grande, also 23 miles away. So the count rests less on many episodes than on one case at a desert campground.

These are the show's cases, not the town's crime rate. James and Jimmie choose where to go; Florence ranks because a campground sat inside the 25 mile ring.