In the sleepy Vinton neighborhood of brick ranch and split-level homes where Nidal Malik Hasan grew up, traffic is heavier than normal these days.

Curious motorists are driving by to catch a glimpse of the white, two-story house on Ramada Road, as if it might somehow offer clues about what could have provoked a former resident to go on a shooting spree halfway across the country.

Hasan, the son of Roanoke restaurateurs who went on to graduate from Virginia Tech and become an Army psychiatrist, is suspected of killing 13 people and wounding 30 more at Fort Hood in Texas.

As the news made its way back to Vinton, the woman who lives with her family in the house Hasan once shared with his parents and two brothers has been subjected day and night to drive-by gawkers.

"We couldn't sleep all night," Alma Jerkovic said Friday morning.

Yet for all the interest in Hasan, details about his years in the Roanoke Valley remained elusive.

Described as a studious and withdrawn youth, Hasan was born in Arlington to Palestinian immigrants who moved to the Roanoke area in 1985.

Hasan skipped from school to school -- he spent just his senior year at William Fleming High School before graduating in 1988 -- and didn't seem to make much of an impression wherever he went.

James Jordan, one of Hasan's classmates, described him as a normal high schooler who was laid-back and liked to joke.

"He was just, to me, another average high school student," he said. But, Hasan wasn't involved in any clubs or athletics, Jordan recalled.

Jordan met Hasan when the two had an Advanced Placement history class together.

VIDEO: High school video of suspected Fort Hood shooter shows Nidal Hasan telling vulgar Arabic joke

He was shocked when he learned that Hasan is the suspected shooter.

"To think that this guy I palled around with in high school could 20 years later do something like this.

"It's just amazing how much people can change in 20 years," he said.

Although Hasan, 39, was a devout Muslim, it was not known if he was so when he was younger.

Amer Al-Zubadi, the imam of the Kufa Center of Islamic Knowledge in Northwest Roanoke, said he did not personally know Hasan and that he did not remember the family being involved with the Islamic center during the 1990s.

The Hasan family had deep roots in the valley, Al-Zubadi said.

In 1987, the family bought the Capitol Restaurant, a blue-collar beer hall that became a conspicuous presence on the revitalizing Roanoke City Market.

For the next eight years, patrons enjoyed greasy blue-plate specials and sipped on Old Milwaukees in the worn wooden booths while a jukebox played Motown. In a 1995 interview with The Roanoke Times, Malik Hasan, Nidal's father, acknowledged that "the reputation of the Capitol wasn't that good."

Philip Trompeter, a judge in Roanoke County, said Friday that his late father leased the restaurant space to the Hasans. Though he couldn't recall much about them, he said Nidal Hasan was involved in the restaurant.

"I remember they were very proud of their son, as well they should be," he said. "They were a very, very nice family as we recall."

Malik Hasan closed the cafe in 1995 to open a more upscale restaurant on Jefferson Street, which he named Mount of Olives Bar and Grill, after his father's olive grove in Jerusalem. The restaurant had an uptown atmosphere and served import beers, lamb kebabs and stuffed grape leaves.

The Hasan family also owned the Hot Dog Queen restaurant on Church Avenue, Parrish Grocery on Fourth Street and Community Grocery on Elm Avenue.

Malik Hasan died in 1998 at 52 of a massive heart attack. His wife, Hanan Hasan, died three years later. She was 49.

After graduating from Fleming, Nidal Hasan studied at Barstow Community College in California through a location at Fort Irwin, a nearby U.S. Army base.

"Our records indicate he was an enlisted soldier," college spokesman Maureen Stokes said.

While a dean's list student, Hasan remained an indistinct figure.

"We don't have him listed as having any activities," Stokes added. "I have a teacher who's been here forever and he didn't remember him. He's been asking me to check and see if he taught him."

Hasan later returned to Roanoke and enrolled at Virginia Western Community College in 1990. He graduated summa cum laude with an associate degree in science two years later, according to college spokeswoman Margaret Boyes.

Boyes said she was not aware of any professors at Virginia Western who remembered Hasan.

From Virginia Western, Hasan transferred to Tech, where he graduated in 1995 with honors. Honors students typically have grade-point averages of 3.5 or above.

Tom Sitz, a biochemistry professor at Tech since 1982, vaguely remembered meeting Hasan in 1993. Sitz said Hasan settled in well to his classes at Tech.

"He was not the kind of student who made a big splash, either positive or negative. He was a solid student," he said.

As a long-time professor, Sitz said he has taught students who exhibited disturbed behaviors. But Hasan was not one of those. "He got into medical school. You have to have some credentials to do that," Sitz said.

While at Tech, Hasan maintained his ties to home, registering to vote in Roanoke County and obtaining a concealed weapon permit from a Circuit Court judge in 1996.

With his undergraduate degree in hand, Hasan earned a doctorate in psychiatry from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2003. From 2003 through this summer, he was an intern, a resident and then a fellow at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

As an intern at Walter Reed, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time, told the Associated Press.

Grieger said privacy laws prevented him from going into details but noted that the problems had to do with Hasan's interactions with patients. He recalled Hasan as a "mostly very quiet" person who never spoke ill of the military or his country.

"He swore an oath of loyalty to the military," Grieger said. "I didn't hear anything contrary to those oaths."

Hasan attended prayers regularly when he lived outside Washington, often in his Army uniform, Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md., told the AP.

But after Hasan was transferred to Fort Hood to await deployment to Afghanistan -- an assignment he opposed based on his Muslim beliefs -- additional concerns were raised.

Law enforcement officials said they are trying to confirm if Hasan wrote Internet postings that include his name about suicide bombings and other threats, equating suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the life of fellow soldiers, according to the AP.

On the day of the shootings, Jacqueline Harris, 44, who lives with her boyfriend, Willie Bell, in the apartment next door to Hasan, said he called Thursday at 5 a.m. and left a message.

"He just wanted to thank Willie for being a good friend and thank him for being there for him," Harris told the AP. "That was it. We thought it was just a nice message to leave."

Bell said Hasan offered a farewell, saying, "Nice knowing you, old friend. I'm going to miss you."

A few hours later, Hasan allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers assembled at Fort Hood's readiness facility in what is believed to be the deadliest mass shooting on a U.S. military base in history.

In a statement released Friday, Hasan's family said that his alleged actions were deplorable and don't reflect how the family was reared.

"Our family is filled with grief for the victims and their families involved in yesterday's tragedy," said Nader Hasan, a cousin who lives in Northern Virginia. "We are mortified with what has unfolded, and there is no justification, whatsoever, for what happened. We are all asking why this happened, and the answer is that we simply do not know."

Staff writers Neil Harvey, Lindsey Nair and Jorge Valencia, news researcher Belinda Harris and the Associated Press contributed to this report.