Official: Sikh shooting suspect was ex-Army

OAK CREEK, Wis. -- Before he strode into a Sikh temple with a 9-mm 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.

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 is largely a mystery.

Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards suggested yesterday that investigators might never know for certain why the lone attacker targeted a temple full of strangers.

"We have a lot of information to decipher, to put it all together before we can positively tell you what that motive is -- if we can determine that," Edwards said.

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 law center in Montgomery, Ala., said Page played in groups whose sinister-sounding names seemed to "reflect what he went out and actually did." The music talked about genocide against Jews and other minorities.

Page joined the military in Milwaukee in 1992 and was a repairman for the Hawk missile system before switching jobs to become one of the Army's psychological operations specialists assigned to a battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C.He was demoted in June 1998 for getting drunk while on duty and going AWOL, defense officials said.

Page's former stepmother said she was devastated. "He was a precious little boy, and that's what my mind keeps going back to," said Laura Page of Denver, who divorced Page's father around 2001.

Suburban Milwaukee police had no contact with Page before Sunday, and his record gave no indication he was capable of such intense violence.

Among his victims was Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65, president of the temple, who managed to find a butter knife and attempted to stab the gunman before being shot twice, his son said yesterday.

Amardeep Singh Kaleka said FBI agents hugged him, shook his hand and told him his father was a hero.

Records show Page had a brief criminal history, including a 1994 arrest in El Paso for getting drunk and kicking holes in the wall of a bar, and driving under the influence in Colorado in 1999.