Why is the Long Branch, New Jersey area so murdery, by murders?

Long Branch is on the Monmouth County shore in central New Jersey, a beach resort since the late 1700s, and early presidents went there. Theatrical performers followed the crowds in the nineteenth century, and by the twentieth it had settled into a family holiday town. Population in 2024: 31,734.

The Long Branch area accounts for seven murders in five episodes across five towns: one in Long Branch, two in Ocean Grove six miles away, one in Neptune City at seven, then pairs 23 and 24 miles out in Toms River Township and Woodbridge Township, the latter an episode pairing cases from 1979 and 1984.

The years run from 1979 to 2016, with a cluster in the early eighties: 1982, two cases in April 1983, then 1984, and nothing more until 2004 and 2016. No episode carries more than two victims. That leaves a shore town and the townships within 25 miles of it, each adding a case or two at a time, enough for rank 55 overall and second in New Jersey.