As a completely uneducated layman, I'm skeptical of the link between murder and other crime. I thought murder more often than not is a crime of passion.
I'm not sure most of them are "crimes of passion", certainly most victims have a criminal past in the US. But, yes, it does seem to be not tightly linked to other violent crimes.
But we focus on it since it's the hardest to sweep under the rug, despite that happening a lot.
