Why is Kings Mountain, North Carolina so murdery?

Kings Mountain sits in the hills of North Carolina's south-western corner, about forty minutes from Charlotte and fifteen from Gastonia, which keeps it in the orbit of both. It ranks 57 overall and first in North Carolina, and the cases behind that are not one town's story but four: Kings Mountain itself, Gastonia nine miles off, Cherryville ten, and Gaffney across the state line in South Carolina at twenty-one. Three of the four are textile towns; Cherryville grew out of tobacco as well.

The fourteen murders come in four episodes and spread from 1967 to 2016, with nothing in the 1970s or 1980s to trouble the count. Two episodes do most of the lifting, one with five victims and one with four, while the others add three and two. No single bad year explains the ranking.

It counts the show's cases, not the region's crime figures. James and Jimmie decide where to go, and they keep deciding on these small towns.