Why is Van Buren, Arkansas so murdery?

Van Buren sits on the Arkansas River in Crawford County, west Arkansas, population 23,812 as the hosts told it in 2023. It began in 1818 as a fuel stop, lumber yards serving the river traffic, and got a post office in 1831 under the name Phillips Landing before being renamed for a secretary of state who was not yet president. The show's tally here is three episodes, eight murders, three towns, all inside twenty miles.

Episode 365 is the home fixture: two victims in Van Buren itself in May 1981. Episode 711 carries five of the eight, in Kibler, seven miles away, a case dated January 1981 that reaches back to September 1970. Episode 435 adds one in Gans, twenty miles out, in July 1982. So this is not a long accumulation across the decades but one episode doing most of the lifting, with two smaller ones either side of it.

And it counts the show's cases, not crime. James and Jimmie pick the towns. Rank 155 overall, third in Arkansas, describes a podcast's map rather than a warning label.