Why is Wallburg, North Carolina so murdery?

Wallburg is a town of about 3,050 people in Davidson County, central North Carolina, and it takes its league place less on its own account than on its neighbours'. Only one of the twelve murders within twenty-five miles happened in Wallburg itself. The rest are strung out along the roads around it: High Point ten miles off, the village of Clemmons twelve miles away towards Winston-Salem, and Summerfield twenty miles out, just beyond Greensboro. A commuter belt with a body count.

The decades run wide, from a case in 1984 to one in 2015, but the arithmetic is lopsided. Episode 409 carries seven of the twelve by itself. Episode 451 adds three, and episodes 364 and 665 supply one apiece. So this is less a town with a habit than a town with a catchment area.

Which is the honest way to read the whole league. James and Jimmie pick where the show goes, and a town sitting near four others inherits their cases. Wallburg got the ranking; the small towns around it did the work.