Why is Kittery, Maine so murdery?

Kittery sits at the southern tip of Maine, in York County, where the state narrows to the Piscataqua river and the sea: about fifty minutes from Portland, an hour and five from Boston, forty minutes from Old Orchard Beach. It calls itself the 'Gateway to Maine'; it began as an English settlement around 1623 and became the first town in the district of Maine. For 75 square miles it is mostly water, 57.5 of them, leaving roughly 17 of land and a population of 9,653 as told in 2018.

The show's twelve murders within 25 miles arrive in seven episodes spread over seven towns, only three of them in Kittery itself. The cases run from 1984 to 2012, one every few years rather than one grim season: among them a mill town, a quiet beach town, a small town over the New Hampshire line. Two episodes carry three victims each and the others one or two, so no lone case props up the number.

Plainly, this counts the show's cases, not crime. The show picks the towns, and a rank of 78 is as much a map of James and Jimmie's itinerary as of anything else.