Why is South Lake Tahoe, California so murdery?

South Lake Tahoe sits at the southern end of Lake Tahoe, on the California-Nevada line in El Dorado County, 6,237 feet up and strung along US 50 between Carson City and Sacramento. It is a resort town that got made rather than grew: casinos opened on the Nevada side from 1944, the roads were ploughed all year so people could reach them, the 1960 Winter Olympics up the road turned the area into a ski destination, and in 1965 a cluster of rural unincorporated towns was incorporated into one. The show's 12 murders within 25 miles are rank 84 overall and first in California, but the shape of them is odd.

Four episodes, three towns. Two of them, episodes 11 and 12, tell the same case from May 1987, five victims each, so a single story supplies 10 of the 12 and all of the town's own count. The other two are one victim apiece: 2008 in Minden, 12 miles off, and 1998 in Incline Village, 23 miles around the shore.

This counts the show's cases, not the town's crime rate. James and Jimmie choose where to go, and a lake with casinos and a ski lift gets chosen.