OAK CREEK, Wis. (AP/CBS) - The man who opened fire in a Wisconsin Sikh temple posted frequent comments on Internet forums for skinheads, repeatedly exhorting members to act more decisively to support their cause.
A day after Wade Michael Page's attack, authorities were trying to determine why the 40-year-old Army veteran targeted total strangers in a house of worship.
Detectives cautioned they might never know for sure. But the picture of Page that began to develop suggested he was a white supremacist who wanted to see his beliefs advanced with action.
Page, who was shot to death by police, described himself as a member of the "Hammerskins Nation," a skinhead group rooted in Texas that has branches in Australia and Canada.
Federal authorities said they'd come across Wade Michael Page, 40, before. And he had a criminal record, police say.
But his stepmother said the man being described is nothing like the person she remembers.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Page was a member of two skinhead bands, including one called Definite Hate.
In a 2007 performance in South Carolina, the group played under a giant swastika flag emblazoned with the face of Adolph Hitler.
"We are looking at ties to white supremacist groups, of course," the FBI special agent in charge, Teresa Carlson, said at a news conference.
In a 2010 interview, Page, a U.S. Army veteran, said he started his other band, End Apathy, because, "the value of human life has been degraded by being submissive to tyranny and hypocrisy that we are subjugated to."
Monday night, his stepmother, Laura Page, told reporters the emerging portrait of her stepson was unrecognizable.
"He was gentle and kind and loving and a he was a happy person and a happy child. And what happened, God only knows, because I don't," Page said.
She is divorced from Page's father and said the last time she saw her stepson was Christmas 1999.
"When he lived in Texas with us, he had Hispanic friends and he had black friends. You know, there was none of that," Page added.
Several years ago, Page's name turned up as part of several federal investigations, although Page himself was never a target and there was no intelligence to suggest he posed a threat.
Page's criminal record included convictions for criminal mischief and arrests for driving under the influence.
He was also a soldier, last stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C. But he was demoted in 1998 for being drunk on duty and absent without leave.
Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards says Page "was in the military from 1992 - 1998. He had a general discharge and he was ineligible for re-enlistment."
The shootings have once again raised fears about violent attacks by right wing extremists, which are on the rise, according to the FBI, the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League, which track hate groups.
Sources told CBS News Page bought a 9 mm pistol at a store called The Shooters Shop. Manager Eric Grabowski says, "We see a lot of people every day and he didn't stand out if he was in here."
Page bought the gun July 28, just one week before the shooting spree.
It was captured by surveillance cameras at the temple, as well as by dashboard cameras on the police cruisers that responded.
But because the shooting also involved an officer, those videos will not be released for at least a month, to give the police time to complete that part of the investigation.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press/CBS News Interactive. All Rights Reserved.)
Wade Michael Page
