By Celina Tebor, CNN
Tucson, Arizona (CNN) — The residents of the Catalina Foothills are friendly, offering “good mornings” and waves to passersby on the street.
They’re also private: Towering saguaro cacti and long, winding driveways shroud nearly every house in the affluent neighborhood north of Tucson.
For those who chose the hillside community for the quiet escape it offers, that privacy has been encroached upon over much of the past six weeks.
Swarms of media outlets and law enforcement officers descended on the community when Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie, went missing from her home on February 1, the suspected victim of an abduction.
The case quickly captured the attention of the nation, attracting intense media coverage and obsession from online sleuths as questions – some still yet to be answered – swirled about ransom notes and DNA from discarded gloves.
But in her own neighborhood, almost no one wants to talk about Guthrie.
“It’s an enigma,” said David Holter, among the few people around here willing to talk about her mysterious disappearance.
Holter, who lives about a mile away, remembers a suitcase stolen off a porch and a bicycle swiped. That’s the extent of the crime he could recall in the Catalina Foothills in the decades he’s lived here.
But the atmosphere has shifted.
“I’ve been hearing neighbors talk about putting safe rooms in their house,” since Guthrie’s disappearance, Holter said.
This weekday morning in the tucked-away neighborhood is quiet, the silence only broken by chirping birds or the wind blowing against the dry vegetation. No law enforcement vehicles, no news crews. And Holter’s wife, for one, is glad.
“It’s enough already,” she said, exasperated, as she walked off.
Media outlets pull up stakes
Indeed, the seemingly endless lines of cars and news vans parked outside Guthrie’s home during the early days of the investigation are gone, replaced by orange cones along the road shoulder. Savannah Guthrie has too returned to New York City from her native Tucson.
In the dusty foothills, there are parking restrictions within a half mile in every direction of the Guthrie house, with A-frame stands warning the Pima County Sheriff’s Department will strictly enforce the prohibitions.
Under a “no trespassing” sign staked in front of the house, another sign reads: “Dear media, This neighborhood needs space to process, heal and gather in privacy as a loving community. Please cover this tragedy from elsewhere so that we may have some privacy, space, and dignity.”
There are no national – or local – media outlets setting up for live broadcasts on this searing hot afternoon. But there is John DePetro, an independent journalist livestreaming on TikTok, who could recall with remarkable precision where each outlet was stationed at the height of the frenzy.
“There was NewsNation over there,” he said, pointing to the side of the road. “’Fox and Friends’ next to them.”
“Whatever MSNBC is now,” he continued, pointing a finger at a different spot on the road each time he rattled off an outlet. “ABC – ‘Good Morning America,’ Aaron Katersky – CNN on the corner, NBC next to them, and then stations from LA and local stations.”
Gone, too, is the heavy law enforcement presence that for days scoured every square inch of Nancy Guthrie’s property, which spans thousands of square feet.
The most consistent visitors now