HOPKINTON, Mass. (AP) – When a young mother and her baby were found shot to death, tucked into bed in their rented home, the international media spotlight turned on this small town.

Hopkinton, population 14,000, is comfortable with that spotlight as the starting point of the Boston Marathon, when thousands of runners, race officials and media descend on the town center for one day every April.

But the deaths of Rachel and 9-month-old Lillian Entwistle, allegedly at the hands of husband and father Neil Entwistle, have brought unwelcome attention to the town about 25 miles west of Boston since the bodies were discovered on Jan. 22.

Dozens of print and broadcast reporters, photographers and videographers, with their accompanying satellite trucks from both sides of the Atlantic, camped outside the small police station on Wednesday waiting for the return of the suspect from his native England.

Prosecutors say Entwistle shot his wife and daughter on Jan. 20 with his father-in-law’s .22-caliber handgun, apparently distraught over mounting debt. He may have intended to kill himself, but instead he flew to the United Kingdom on Jan. 21, prosecutors said.

The case doesn’t reflect the reality of Hopkinton, residents say.

“People who know Hopkinton have always felt safe here,” resident Nancy Macmillan said Saturday, adding that media traffic has gotten out of control.

Hopkinton was incorporated in 1715 centered then, as now, on Main Street. The library, built in 1895, still stands, as do a handful of churches and private homes.

The Entwistles lived a few miles northwest of the original Main Street, in a developing area near the intersection of Interstate 495 and the Massachusetts Turnpike known as Woodville.

Like the exurbs of other cities, Hopkinton’s expansion is apparent in the style of its homes. Main Street is lined with brick colonial houses, many dated with plaques from the 1800s.

Farther from the center are a mixture of old farm houses and barns abutting vacant properties, homes under construction, or large new homes with vinyl siding and manicured lawns like 6 Cubs Path, the house the Entwistles had been renting in Woodville for just 10 days before mother and daughter were found dead.

“Those of us who live in Woodville like to say Woodville,” Virginia Potenza, a librarian said, even though it’s a part of Hopkinton. It has its own zip code and post office, and plenty of open space.

“It looks like it used to be someone’s farm – which it was,” Deb St. Angelo said. She had brought her son to Macmillan for a haircut at the Lovely Lady Salon.

St. Angelo, a fifth generation resident, and Macmillan went back and forth, trying to remember whose farm it was. They could remember a few generations, but not the original owner.

“When we grew up we knew everybody who lived here,” St. Angelo said.

“Now,” Macmillan replied, “I don’t even know who lives next door, unfortunately.”

Nobody in town knew the Entwistles.

“They wouldn’t have really found their way into the community,” St. Angelo said.

Not that it isn’t a welcoming community, she said, but it’s growing too fast for the locals to keep up with. The population has swelled from 9,000 to 14,000 in the past six years.

“I just don’t want to talk about the murders,” Macmillan said.

AP-ES-02-18-06 1844EST