Last modified: Friday, July 28, 2006 12:38 AM EDT Manhunt in SA By Rebecca Keister and Stu Skerker/Sun Chronicle Staff ATTLEBORO -- City police gave Helen Thatcher a choice Thursday afternoon -- either sit tight in her house with her two children or leave the neighbor hood while they searched a nearby house for two murder suspects. `` We packed up and left,'' Thatcher said. But plenty of other area residents stayed and waited -- some more than nine hours -- while the search, which ended when police determined no one was inside the Curtis Avenue home, was con ducted. Police thought two men wanted for the murder of a Pawtucket woman and the wounding of another early Thursday morning might have been hiding inside the home of one of the suspect's relatives at 17 Curtis Ave. So, they took extreme caution to make sure the area was secure. Essentially, there was no way in or out of neighborhood streets. Barricades were set up at every Curtis Avenue intersection, and for a while, even street residents weren't allowed in. Residents couldn't understand the flurry of activity in their neighborhood, which some described as `` the perfect place to live.'' `` This is the quietest street,'' said Dorothy Swift, a neighbor of Thatcher's on Robinson Avenue. `` Nothing like this ever happens here. People walk all hours of the night here.'' Most who stayed set up camp to watch the real-life drama unfold, some grew irritated when little information about the situation or when they would be allowed back into their homes was available. Turcott Street resident Lois Holden had to stand behind police lines, waiting for some news. She had been turned away from her street about 4:30 p.m., and gone out for dinner, only to be denied access again when she returned. `` I can't get home!'' she said. At the other end of Curtis Avenue, across Route 1, things were relatively quiet as the night died down, and residents were unable to view any of the excitement taking place close by. But that didn't stop them from trying to find out what was going on. A slew of would-be spectators continued to drive down the dead-end street. Deborah Ring arrived home just in time to be bombarded by media vans and camera crews, who set up next to her front yard right after the police arrived on scene. `` They already had the tape up,'' Ring said. `` Then the news channels started showing up, and they've been here all day, alternating.'' Ring said her boyfriend approached an officer stationed across Route 1, at the other entrance to Curtis Avenue, and was told that there `` was a situation, where someone had committed a crime in Pawtucket and he was held up in'' a house. They did not learn the nature of the crime until later. `` We didn't know,'' Ring said. `` The Channel 6 guy told us.''