It's been more than a year and a half since the small shore community of Margate has seen Zulfi Hoxha, the 2010 graduate of Atlantic City High School who grew up a block from the town's City Hall.
But residents have been seeing his face this week in an ISIS recruiting video after news broke that the ISIS senior commander going by the name Abu Hamza al-Amriki is actually Hoxha.
The Atlantic first reported that investigators, in federal documents, identified the man in the ISIS videos -- including one where he reportedly beheads Kurdish soldiers -- was Margate's own Hoxha.
The 25-year-old became radicalized and left for Syria in 2015. He was born in America, but his family is from Albania, according to reports.
"He was so shy. He never talked to people," said Reshat "Richie" Hafizi, who owns Pierre's Pizza, next to the home where Hoxha grew up. Hafizi said Hoxha's father owned the restaurant until his death about 20 years ago, but it's had several owners since then.
"He was brainwashed," Hafizi said of Hoxha.
The FBI has declined to confirm the reporting about Hoxha or say whether he is under investigation.
Margate Police Capt. Matthew Hankinson said he could not say whether his department had ever dealt with Hoxha but confirmed he grew up in the city of just over 6,000 known for Lucy the Elephant, the six-story attraction that stands next to the ocean.
NBC10 spoke with his mother, Ltefaji Hoxha, who confirmed that he is an ISIS fighter and said the news is upsetting to her. She told the station she hasn't heard from him in a year.
A man who said he lived in the family's apartment yelled at a reporter to "get away" Thursday but declined to say whether he was a relative.
A 'crazy thing'
Hafizi, of Egg Harbor Township, said he knows the Hoxha family as neighbors. They include Hoxha's mother, two brothers and a sister, he said.
"Everybody knows these people. You think, 'no way,'" he said of the family.
Alban Mertkola of Ventnor, who owned Pierre's Pizza before Hafizi, described Hoxha as a "closed person" who didn't talk to people.
Alban Mertkola, left, and Reshat "Richie" Hafizi, sit in Pierre's Pizza in Margate. The Hoxha family owned it two decades ago, they said, long before Mertkola and then Hafizi bought the business. (Rebecca Everett | For NJ.com) "I used to give him a slice of pizza," he said, holding his hand three feet off the ground to show how small Hoxha was at the time.
Sitting at a table in the empty restaurant Thursday afternoon, Hafizi and Mertkola said previous news reports mentioning the pizza place have devastated the business, even though they say the Hoxha family hasn't been affiliated with the restaurant for decades.
"We're not proud for what he's doing over there," Mertkola said. "That's the most crazy thing we ever heard."
Hafizi said people have been calling the restaurant, harassing him and his staff.
"They call and say they want a pizza with a head on it," Hafizi said. "They call us terrorists."
'It's troubling'
The Atlantic reported that in federal documents, investigators said Hoxha left the United States on April 6, 2015 and was in an ISIS training camp in four days. The beheading video was taken within six months, the magazine reported.
In another propaganda video in 2017, according to The Atlantic, Hoxha encourages people to carry out so-called lone wolf attacks on non-Muslim people with knives, cars or other means.
Counterterrorism experts have a profile of the kind of person who is more likely to be radicalized by Islamic State propaganda, said John Cohen, a professor at Rutgers University and senior advisor at the University's Institute for Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security.
"They tend to be people who feel disconnected from society. They don't feel like they belong. They may be friendly, they may have friends, but they don't feel a strong connection to the community," he said. They might have had "life failures" and mental health issues, and they are looking for something to believe in, he said.
He said the Islamic State carefully targets these kinds of westerners it hopes will "self-connect with the cause."
"We shouldn't be surprised" when it works, he said.
A former Department of Homeland Security's counterterrorism coordinator, Cohen said it is rare the someone radicalized here could actually make it to Syria to join the fight.
"It's troubling that someone from the U.S., with everything put in place in past years, was able to circumvent our security and go to Syria," he said Friday.
It's not clear how Hoxha made it to Syria.
Investigators are constantly combing social media and otherwise monitoring people they believe might be becoming radicalized, he said. If someone they're watching buys a plane ticket to Turkey, or even somewhere in Western Europe, that's a red flag.
"Even if the trip is broken up," he said. "They've put in quite a few capabilities specifically to pick up on that kind of travel."
Cohen said the Islamic State's recruitment techniques have evolved over the years. While they previously sent recruiters to the U.S., they later tried to radicalize people by communicating with them over the internet, he said.
When federal investigators used those communications to track and arrest people, ISIS began relying on propaganda videos that resemble music videos or movie trailers to bring in westerners who are looking for "a life purpose."
Cohen said that he was not surprised that Hoxha was able to become an commander for the Islamic State.
"There are a number of examples where Europeans or Westerners have played significant leadership roles" in ISIS and other terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda. "They have a diversified membership."
Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.