Why is Spearfish, South Dakota so murdery?

Spearfish sits in Lawrence County in western South Dakota, about twenty minutes from Deadwood and three hours from Pierre. It began as Queen City. After the gold rush of 1876 it made its living supplying the mining camps with food, mining equipment, booze and women. Market gardening still occurs nearby. In 2023 the population was 12,031. It ranks 360 overall and second in South Dakota.

The three cases within twenty five miles do not cluster. One is in Whitewood, nine miles away, from early April 1991. One is in Spearfish itself, from March 2000. The third is in Belle Fourche, twelve miles away, from July 2004. Each is a single murder in its own episode, 386, 453 and 596, so no one big case carries the count.

Worth saying plainly: this counts the show's cases, not the region's crime. The show picks where to look. Spearfish has a league place because James and Jimmie pointed the microphone at western South Dakota three times, not because anything here says the place is dangerous. An architect passing through in 1935 called the landscape more miraculous than the Grand Canyon, which is the kind of endorsement a murder league cannot compete with.