Cabot Cove, Maine, a small town with an extraordinarily high murder rate from Murder, She Wrote

The numerous small, charming towns and villages that border the New England shoreline from Connecticut to Maine are well-known. One of them was Cabot Cove, the made-up residence of Jessica Fletcher from the television series Murder, She Wrote. Jessica became well-known around the world for her work as a freelance murder mystery author. In her make-believe world, she spent her free time solving homicides that appeared to be beyond the reach of the authorities. She had the chance to hone her detective abilities at Cabot Cove, Maine, which provided an endless stream of enigmatic murders at a rate that made the little community the undisputed champion of the world, at least in terms of homicide rates.

The small seacoast town in New England may have drawn inspiration from any number of settlements in Maine, but the California coast served as the location for the movie's stand-in. Jessica Fletcher's house was one of the sets in Mendocino, and most of the exterior sequences were filmed in Universal City's sound stages. Though some fans of the program have attributed it to Penobscot Bay, Kennebunkport, or Boothbay Harbor, Cabot Cove was not modeled on a specific Maine community. Cabot Cove is a fictional town that was modeled after a small New England coastal community, joining the equally fictional Maine villages of Spruce Harbor (Orphan Train) and Crabapple Cove (M*A*S*H).

The distinction with Cabot Cove is that it had one of the highest murder rates anywhere in the globe over the twelve seasons of its fictional existence. Of course, not all of the murders Jessica looked into took place in Cabot Cove. She frequently traveled to different places to investigate homicides, working in Hawaii with Thomas Magnum. Nevertheless, a 2012 story in the British newspaper Daily Mail claimed that Cabot Cove had a homicide rate higher than Honduras. Honduras had the highest murder rate ever officially recorded at the time. It makes sense that not many cities want to be known as the communities that inspired Jessica.

• Location: Maine