Why is Wheatland, Wyoming so murdery?

Wheatland sits in southeastern Wyoming, a couple of hours from Cheyenne, in Platte County, where the 1800s brought sheep and cattle across wide open spaces. A cattle company with 100,000 head ranged from Nebraska to Rawlins, and when gold turned up in the Black Hills a freight road grew into the Cheyenne-Deadwood stage road. By 1883 the dry land was being irrigated from Blue Grass Creek through canals and a long tunnel. Population in 2018: 3,659.

That is the whole of the show's interest here, and it arrives in one go. All four of Wheatland's murders within 25 miles come from a single episode, episode 53, and a single case dated 8 July 2011, in the town itself at zero miles. No spread across decades, no slow accumulation of small towns along a road: one episode with four victims carries the count, ranked 350 overall and second in Wyoming.

Which says more about the show than the town. These are the cases the show chose to tell, not a crime rate, and a town of 3,659 can look murdery indeed when a single terrible day is the only entry on the ledger.