Why is La Porte, Indiana so murdery?

La Porte sits in the top corner of Indiana, an hour and twenty minutes from Chicago and forty-five minutes from Gary, close enough to the city to be a commuter's address and far enough away to have had its own newspaper since 1836. It calls itself the hub of awesome, which is one way to describe a county seat of about 21,900 people that the show has visited twice.

Those two episodes account for every one of the seven murders within twenty-five miles, and they do not spread evenly. Episode 35 stays in town and carries five victims, with dates running from June 1971 into 1983. Episode 384 steps ten miles out to Trail Creek for two more, dated 1981 and 1984. So a single heavy episode holds most of the weight rather than years of quiet accumulation.

Worth saying plainly: this is a count of the show's cases, not of crime in La Porte County. James and Jimmie choose where to go, and a town gets a rank because it got picked.