Why is the Gardner, North Dakota area so murdery, by murders?

Gardner is the sort of place you drive past without noticing: a two-block farming community of 72 people at the eastern edge of North Dakota, butted up against Minnesota and about half an hour from Fargo. It got a post office in 1881, a year after it was settled, and was properly laid out only in 1882, once the railroad was coming.

The Gardner area's two murders come one per episode, four years apart: episode 638 covers a case from December 2001 in Gardner itself, and episode 683 one from May 1997 in Moorhead, 22 miles off on the Minnesota side of the line. No single episode carries the count. It is two cases, one in each town.

Rank 238 overall, third in North Dakota, is modest company. For a town of 72, though, two murders inside 25 miles is a lot of trouble for a couple of blocks.