Why is Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas so murdery?

Horseshoe Lake is a town of 384 people in Crittenden County, north-eastern Arkansas, about forty minutes outside Memphis. It sits at the eastern tip of the oxbow lake it is named after, in the Mississippi flood plain, and began as a summer recreation spot for Memphis families keeping vacation cabins, once the first visitors had got past the swamps and their mosquitoes.

The eight murders within 25 miles come in three episodes across three towns: three in Horseshoe Lake itself in episode 548, one at Horn Lake fifteen miles away in episode 493, and four at Sarah, twenty-four miles off in Tate County, Mississippi, in episode 1. The dates run from 1994 to 2001, a cluster of a few years rather than a county the show keeps coming back to. Episode 1 alone carries half the count.

Plainly, this counts the show's cases, not crime statistics. The show picks the towns, so a place of 384 people can reach 152nd overall and second in Arkansas on the strength of one episode with four victims.