Sikh temple shooting suspect Wade Michael Page was white supremacist

Wade Michael Page

(AP) OAK CREEK, Wis. - Before he strode into a Sikh temple with a 9mm handgun and multiple magazines of ammunition, Wade Michael Page played in white supremacist heavy metal bands with names such as Definite Hate and End Apathy.

The bald, heavily tattooed bassist was a 40-year-old Army veteran who trained in psychological warfare before he was demoted and discharged more than a decade ago.

When the shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in suburban Milwaukee ended, six victims ranging in age from 39 to 84 years old lay dead. Three others were critically wounded, including Oak Creek Police Officer Lt. Brian Murphy.

Lt. Brian Murphy, one of the police officers who ran to the scene of the shooting of a Sikh temple in Wis., was critically injured.

 (Credit: Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office)

A day after he killed six worshippers at the suburban Milwaukee temple, fragments of Page's life emerged in public records and interviews. But his motive was still largely a mystery. He left no hate-filled manifesto, no angry blog or ranting Facebook entries to explain the attack.

Page, who was shot to death by police, joined the Army in 1992 and was discharged in 1998. He was described Monday by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "frustrated neo-Nazi" who had long been active in the obscure underworld of white supremacist music.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the nonprofit civil rights organization in Montgomery, Ala., said Page played in groups whose sometimes sinister-sounding names seemed to "reflect what he went out and actually did." The music often talked about genocide against Jews and other minorities.

Source: CBS