Why is Harrington, Delaware so murdery?

Harrington sits in central Delaware, in Kent County, a railroad junction town that grew into a trading centre and, before that, was a corner of 6,000 acres of forest known as Clark's Corner. Population 3,730. It ranks 51st overall and second in Delaware, with 14 murders across eight episodes and eight towns within 25 miles, only two of them in Harrington itself.

The cases run from the mid-1970s to 2001, so this is not one bad year in one place. Three sit in the 1970s, three in the 1980s, and one each in the 1990s and 2000s, scattered from Houston four miles away to Laurel 24 miles out, taking in Bridgeville, Marydel, Dover, Cheswold and Kenton. No single episode carries the count: the largest has three victims, and most have one or two. Eight episodes adding up is the story.

Worth saying plainly that this measures the show's cases, not crime in Delaware. James and Jimmie choose the towns, and a quiet crossroads with 265 people gets an episode for the same reason a railroad junction does.