Why is Richmond, Vermont so murdery?

Richmond sits in Chittenden County, half an hour south of Burlington and a little over twenty minutes from Montpelier: farm and ski country, a river through the middle, a sixteen-sided meeting house and about 4,100 people. The show's introduction makes it sound like the sort of quiet, family-oriented town where nothing much happens.

The seven murders within 25 miles come in four episodes and four towns, and only two of the victims are Richmond's own. The rest sit at nine miles, sixteen and twenty-two, in places the show treats as neighbours. The cases stretch from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s, so this is not one bad decade but a slow trickle. No single episode carries the count either: each brings one or two victims, and the total adds up episode by episode.

It is worth saying plainly that this is a count of the show's cases, not of crime. James and Jimmie choose where to stop, and a town's rank says more about the map of their interests than about anywhere's safety.