Why is McCarthy, Alaska so murdery?

McCarthy is one of the smallest and most remote towns the show has covered: nine murders within 25 miles, all nine in the town itself, which puts it first in Alaska and 139th overall. That is the whole of its league standing, and it rests on a single episode. Episode 533 covers the cases, dated to 1983 and 1993, and carries all nine victims between them. No other episode comes within 25 miles.

The place is a long way from anywhere. James puts it in southeastern Alaska, six and a half hours' drive from Anchorage, with no road into town for much of the year and a hand-powered cable tram across the Kennecott River. Before the copper was found between the Kennecott Glacier and McCarthy Creek in 1900, Native people had hunted the area and collected copper nuggets from the creeks, with a permanent camp on the Copper River at Tural near Chitina. Then the Kennecott Mining Company arrived and built its company town.

Nine victims in one episode is the sort of count that flatters a leaderboard. It measures the show's choices, not the town's crime rate: the show picks where to go, and McCarthy was picked once.