Why is Lashmeet, West Virginia so murdery?

Lashmeet sits at the far southern end of West Virginia, in Mercer County, a place that began as isolated farmland with its own salt works, tannery, grist mill and foundry before a mine opened on Mill Creek in 1884, out-of-state coal operators moved in and the population jumped. The show's map around it is a scatter of small towns: 18 murders across five episodes and five towns within 25 miles, and only one of those in Lashmeet itself.

The cases run from 1956 to 2020, so the show keeps coming back to this corner of the state decade after decade. The distances are modest: seven miles to the county seat, 17 and 20 to the next towns along, 24 to the largest.

The count is not spread evenly, though. Episode 304 alone carries 13 victims, and the other four episodes add five between them, one each apart from episode 565 with two. Worth saying plainly: this is a tally of the show's cases, not of crime. The show picks the towns, and southern West Virginia gets picked a lot.