Muscatine ---- Murder Incorporated

If you look at the crime data for Iowa you will see 46 murders in Iowa in 2000, when the population was 2,930,000 souls. That about 1 murder for every 63695 Iowans.

There are about 25,000 people in Muscatine, IA and a total of 45,000 people in Muscatine County. Doing a back to the envelope calculations. You can see the murder rate in Muscatine should 1 person every 2 to 3 years. For comparision, Des Moines, Iowa should have about 15 murders in and average year.

There have been 7 murders in towns in the past 9 months.

Last year it was a woman in the Wal-mart parking lot.
6 month ago, it was a shooting of two kids under the age of five.
Last month, a man shot his girlfriend and her lover.
This week, a man shot his girlfriend than shot himself, in a murder/suicide.

This quiet town is turning into a war zone.