Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Gunman took own life
Temple killer’s fatal bullet selfinflicted, FBI concludes.
MILWAUKEE — Wade Page, the man who police say shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin this week, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said Wednesday. Authorities had reported earlier that he was fatally shot by a police officer.
Page, 40, shot himself in the head after being struck by a bullet fired by an officer from the Oak Creek Police Department, said Teresa Carlson, a special agent with the FBI. The bullet fired by the officer hit Page in the stomach, Carlson said.
Since shortly after Page died Sunday, police had said he was killed by the Oak Creek officer after he had continued to shoot at people, including a police officer who was among those wounded.
The motive for the attack on the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin is still unknown, Carlson said.
Authorities also said that a former girlfriend of Page, Misty Cook, 31, was arrested on weapons charges. She is not believed to have been involved in the shooting at the temple.
Page, authorities said, walked into the temple shortly before Sunday services were to begin and opened fire with a 9mm pistol. Satwant Singh Kaleka, the temple’s president, was among those killed.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has described Page as a neo-Nazi, had been tracking him for years. An Army veteran, Page was well known in the whitepower subculture, posting hundreds of messages on supremacist websites and playing in bands called Definite Hate and End Apathy.
“We’re trying to piece together, and eventually we will piece together as much as we can,” said Steven Conley, assistant agent in charge of national security for the FBI in Milwaukee. “We will have a good idea of the motive by the time this investigation is done. But again, why that building, that temple, at that time, that may have died with Page.”
At the moment, detectives are searching through the gunman’s life, assembling the biography of a man who apparently had few relatives, a spotty work history and a thin criminal record.
“We just want to get to the bottom of what motivated him to do it,” said Amardeep Singh, an executive with the New York- based Sikh Coalition. “It’s important to acknowledge why they lost their lives.”
A native of Littleton, Colo., Page had a record of minor alcohol- related crimes in Texas, Colorado and North Carolina. He was demoted during a stint in the Army for getting drunk on duty and going AWOL before he was discharged in 1998. Page eventually moved to Wisconsin, living in South Milwaukee with a girlfriend and working the third shift at a brazing factory in Cudahy, another Milwaukee suburb.
Neighbors said the couple broke up this past spring. Page moved into a Cudahy duplex in mid-July and quit showing up for work around the same time. A few days after he moved into the duplex, he visited a West Allis gun shop and, after clearing background checks, bought the gun he used in the shooting.
Rajwant Singh, chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said even though Page is dead, other white-supremacy and neo-Nazi groups could harbor similar intentions.
“Our concern is, how do we tackle these hate groups operating underground or in darkness?” he said.
Investigators probably will collect all bullets and fragments from the temple and the victims’ bodies to confirm they came from Page’s gun. Detectives also will pore over witness statements to make absolutely certain he was the only gunman, said Joe LeFevre, chairman of the forensic science department at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton.
Authorities are interviewing Page’s family, friends and associates. Agents spent Monday morning doing a door-to-door sweep on his street, chatting with neighbors on their front porches and in their backyards.
“It’s like any crime,” said Jack Ryan, a Rhode Island attorney who trains police around the country. “You focus on their recent tracks. You focus on friends, acquaintances. He had to get ready for this plot somewhere.”