AP / FBI

An undated photo provided by the FBI shows Wade Michael Page, who went on a killing rampage in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis.

The gunman who killed six people and wounded four others at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin before being shot by an officer died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the FBI said Wednesday.

Wade Michael Page, 40, died at the scene of Sunday’s mass shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek.

Authorities originally said Page was fatally shot by an officer responding to the scene. At a press conference Wednesday, Milwaukee FBI Special Agent in Charge Teresa Carlson said investigators have since determined that Page shot himself in the head after wounding one officer and being shot in the stomach by a second officer.

"The evidence indicates that the second responding officer who shot Page in the stomach, thereby neutralizing the threat -- and by the way, I've seen the video, it is an amazing shot. And thank goodness. Subsequent to that wound, it appears that Page died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," Carlson said.

Authorities reiterated Wednesday that it appears Page, who reportedly had ties to white supremacist groups, acted alone and that they still have not determined his motive.

Carlson said investigators have conducted more than 100 interviews nationwide of family members, associates, employers and neighbors. They are also analyzing Page's computer, email and telephone records.

The video surveillance system inside the temple was not turned on Sunday so there's no recorded view of what happened inside the 16,000-square-foot building, Carlson said.

Page’s ex-girlfriend, Misty Cook, 31, was arrested Sunday night after police found an illegal gun in the home she once shared with Page. Carlson said Wednesday neither the gun nor Cook was connected to the shooting at the temple.

Authorities said Page, a former Army sergeant, entered the gurdwara shortly before services were to begin and opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

Among the wounded was a police officer, Oak Creek Police Lt. Brian Murphy, who was shot multiple times. 

“He was up walking yesterday,” Police Chief John Edwards said at Wednesday’s press conference.

“He’s progressing amazingly and we’re very, very thankful for that.”

John Gress / Reuters

Sikhs attend a vigil in Oak Creek, Wis., on Aug. 7, to honor the victims of a shooting spree at a Sikh temple.

On Tuesday night, hundreds of residents attended the annual “Night Out” in Oak Creek, transforming the neighborhood event about public safety into a poignant quasi-vigil for the victims of the mass shooting. Attendees held candles and prayed for the victims, remembering them as peaceful individuals dedicated to their families and faith.

President Barack Obama called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday to express his condolences over the shooting, the White House said.

"The two leaders spoke about their shared commitment to tolerance and religious freedom, and the president again reiterated his appreciation for the significant contribution that Sikhs make to the broader American community," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One.

More content from NBCNews.com: 

• Minister stands trial in international lesbian kidnap case
• Are nuns getting ready to spurn the Vatican?
• Girl, 6, found clinging to corpse in middle of lake
• Missing best friends found dead in New Jersey river
• Video: Athletes reveal the royal who makes them swoon

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

The gunman who allegedly attacked a Sikh temple in southern Wisconsin, killing six people and wounding four, was a “white supremacist skinhead” and “frustrated neo-Nazi” who led a white power punk and metal band, groups that track extremism said Monday.

Wade Michael Page, 40, was the founder of End Apathy, according to Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a blog post about Page, Potok cited an April 2010 interview that the alleged gunman gave to the “Uprise Direct” music website about the band’s work.

MySpace, End Apathy

A photo of Wade Michael Page, 40, who is accused of killing six people and wounding four others at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis.

Page said his band, which formed in 2005, “was based on trying to figure out what it would take to actually accomplish positive results in society and what is holding us back. A lot of what I realized at the time was that if we could figure out how to end people’s apathetic ways it would be the start towards moving forward. Of course after that it requires discipline, strict discipline to stay the course in our sick society.

“So, in a sense it was view of psychology and sociology. But I didn't want to just point the finger at what other people should do, but also I was willing to point out some of my faults on how I was holding myself back. And that is how I wrote the song ‘Self Destruct,’’ he said.

Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League, said Page was a mem­ber of the Ham­mer­skins, "one of the oldest and largest hardcore racist skinhead groups," and iden­ti­fied him­self as a North­ern Ham­mer­skin, part of the group’s upper Mid­west branch. 

End Apa­thy had been a fea­tured band in recent years at many Hammerskin-organized white power music con­certs, such as the August 2010 “Meet  & Greet BBQ & Bands” in North Car­olina, the Ham­mer­skins’ St. Patty’s Day Show in March 2011 in Orlando, Fla., and Ham­mer­fest 2011 last Octo­ber in Orlando, Pitcavage noted in a blog post, in which he described Page as a "white supremacist skinhead."

“We had identified Page several years ago as someone who was prominent in the white-power music scene,” he told NBC News. He said Page also used a pseudonym, “Jack Boot,” an apparent reference to the high military boots worn by members of dictatorial regimes such as Nazi Germany.

The white-power music scene is one of the main things that the Hammerskins do in the United States and is a “fairly important part of the white supremacist subculture" in the country, said Pitcavage. Because of Page's role in that music scene, he had already become linked with the Hammerskins through his involvement in bands tied to the group and his performances at their events.

Page became a “fully patched” member of the Hammerskins by late 2011 after going through an apprenticeship period. He had one of their tattoos on his right arm -- a sort of cogwheel with the numbers 838 inside it (838 is an alpha-numeric code that means “hail crossed hammers,” a reference to their logo of two-crossed hammers that was taken from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”), Pitcavage said. The tattoo also had the group’s colors of red, black and yellow.

A photo of Page also showed that he had a Celtic Cross tattoo with the number 14 in it, which is a “major white supremacist symbol,” Pitcavage said.

The Hammerskins emerged in Texas in the mid-to-late 1980s and spread across the country. They are loosely organized, not hierarchical and tend to group themselves regionally.

“It has had a strong association with violence over the past several decades,” Pitcavage said, noting that it was not surprising that the alleged gunman “was a white supremacist because white supremacist shooting sprees tend to be directed at minorities.”

FBI probes background of Sikh temple shooting suspect
Sikhs reel after senseless attack: 'We're not Taliban'
Sikhs at the Golden Temple, their holiest shrine

Page said in the “Uprise” interview that his music was a mix of '80s punk, metal and Oi!, a subgenre of punk.

“The topics vary from sociological issues, religion, and how the value of human life has been degraded by being submissive to tyranny and hypocrisy that we are subjugated to,” he said in the interview.

Page was a “frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band,” wrote Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “In 2000, the Southern Poverty Law Center has found that Page also attempted to purchase goods from the neo-Nazi National Alliance, then America's most important hate group.”

The FBI was “looking at ties to white supremacist groups” in the case, said Teresa Carlson, FBI special agent in charge in Milwaukee. They were also investigating the attack as possible domestic terrorism, which she noted meant use of force or violence for social or political gain. The FBI did not have an active investigation on Page before Sunday.

Page, an Army veteran who served from 1992 to 1998 but was never deployed, said in the “Uprise” interview that he was from Colorado and that in 2000 he “wanted to basically start over.”

“So, I sold everything I owned except for my motorcycle and what I could fit into a backpack and went on cross country trip visiting friends and attending festivals and shows. I went to the Hammerfest 2000 in Georgia, over to North Carolina, up to Ohio, down to West Virginia, and out to California… .”

Since 2009, the United States has been in the middle of a “huge resurgence” of right-wing extremism largely split into two spheres: an anti-government extremist one, such as the militia movement, and white supremacists, Pitcavage said. The number of militia groups has quintupled in the past three years and there have been many arrests of white supremacists over the same time for acts of violence, he said.

The election of a non-white president and the struggling economy were the triggers, Pitcavage said.

“It’s just a huge number of incidents from the extreme right since 2009. It’s the biggest resurgence of right-wing extremist activity since the mid-1990s and the Oklahoma City bombing (in 1995), and it’s causing problems all around the country,” he added.

On End Apathy's Myspace page, the group listed its location as Nashville, N.C., and said they had finished recording for an upcoming release on Label 56, which the ADL described as a Maryland-based company that distributes racist skinhead music, videos and merchandise. The last login for the page was dated Feb. 21, 2012.

Label 56 issued a statement Monday saying that all images and products related to the group had been removed from their website.

“We do not wish to profit from this tragedy financially or with publicity,” said the label. “In closing please do not take what Wade did as honorable or respectable and please do not think we are all like that.”

Label 56 officials did not respond to an email and phone call seeking comment.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• Alleged gunman in Sikh temple shooting ID'd as Army vet
• Sikhs reel after 'senseless' attack: We're not Taliban
• Wounded cop in Sikh termple shooting lauded as hero
• Gay couples face big hurdles to parenthood
• Video: Dog-paddling pooch swims with dolphins

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Updated at 4:05 p.m. ET: The alleged gunman in Sunday’s deadly shooting at a Sikh temple in southern Wisconsin is Wade Michael Page, an Army veteran who may have ties to white supremacist groups, authorities announced on Monday.

Page, who served in the Army from April 1992 through October 1998, allegedly killed six people at the temple and wounded four, including a police officer, before he was shot and killed by police. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Page is the former leader of a neo-Nazi music group called End Apathy.  

At a press conference, law-enforcement officials said Page was the only shooter.

"All of us are heartbroken" by the shootings, President Barack Obama said Monday. He also ordered flags in public buildings be flown at half-staff until sunset on Friday. If it turns out, Obama said, that the gunman was motivated by the ethnicity of those at the temple, the American people would recoil against that type of attitude.

Police say Page, 40, legally purchased the 9mm semi-automatic handgun used in the shooting within the past 10 days near his home. The gun was recovered at the scene at the attack.

A police officer called to the scene shot Page dead before he could fire on more worshippers as they prepared for Sunday services at the temple in the suburb of Oak Creek, south of Milwaukee. 

Five men and one woman were killed. They were identified Monday as Sita Singh, 41; Ranjit Singh, 49; Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65; Prakash Singh, 39, Paramjit Kaur (female), 41; and Suveg Singh, 84.

In addition to the wounded officer, three other people, whose names have not been released, were injured. Edwards said two of them were in critical condition at a hospital, and one was treated and released for a minor wound.

At a news conference Monday, authorities said they have not determined a motive for the killings.

"We are investigating it as a possible act of domestic terrorism," FBI Special Agent in Charge Teresa Carlson said. She defined domestic terrorism as "use of force or violence for social or political gain."

Carlson said there is no reason to believe anyone else was involved in the shooting. She said, however, they were pursuing one "person of interest," an unidentified white man wearing a dark T-shirt and sunglasses whose photo she held up during the press conference. The FBI later said that the man in the picture had been located, interviewed and ruled out in connection the shooting. 

Edwards said police received the initial call about the attack at 10:25 a.m. Sunday, and officers arrived on scene within minutes.

Among the first to arrive was Lt. Brian Murphy, who was ambushed when he stopped to help a victim. Murphy was shot eight to nine times with a handgun at close range, Edwards said at Monday's press conference. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest, but was hit in his extremities and suffered a serious wound in his neck.

Sikhs reel after 'senseless' attack: We're not 'Taliban'

When other officers arrived to the scene, they saw the suspect walking and commanded him to drop his weapons, Edwards said. At that point, the suspect fired at police, hitting two vehicles. An officer returned fire with a squad rifle and took him down, according to Edwards.

As officers went to check on Murphy, 51, who has been with the Oak Creek Police Department for 21 years, he waved them off, signaling they should go into the temple and help other victims. Following protocol, officers secured the exterior and helped Murphy, who was rushed to the hospital, before they went into the temple. Murphy remains in critical condition.

More on the suspect
U.S. Army officials say Page was first stationed at Fort Still, then Fort Bliss and then Fort Bragg. At Fort Bragg, he was assigned to psychological operations associated with a special operations unit, though was not a special ops trained soldier, officials told NBC News.

Page rose to the rank of sergeant while in the Army, but was given a dishonorable discharge in 1998 and reduced in rank to a specialist for acts of misconduct. U.S. officials told NBC News the misconduct was connected to a drinking problem.

Officials say Page had no criminal record in the military and no record of combat deployments.

In an interview with The New York Times, Page’s stepmother, Laura Page, 67, of Denver said she had known him since he was a boy of 10. His mother, a dog groomer, died when Wade Page was 12 or 13, she said. He then went to live with an aunt and grandmother.

His stepmother was shocked by the news of the shootings.

“I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine what made him do this,” she told The Times.

MySpace, End Apathy

Authorities believe Wade Michael Page is the gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

He was not being watched by the FBI or any other law enforcement organizations, officials said Monday.

"Nobody knew this guy was a threat," Carlson said.

Carlson said they were examining ties to white supremacist groups and were continuing to locate family and associates. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, called Page a "frustrated neo-Nazi." He was identified by the group as a member of two racist skinhead bands, End Apathy and Definite Hate.

Members of the local Sikh community said the president of the congregation and a priest were among the victims. 

Jagjit Singh Kaleka, the brother of the president of the temple, who was among the six Sikhs killed, said he had no idea what the motive was for the attack. 

Gunman opens fire at Sikh temple in Wisconsin; 7 dead

Sunday night and early Monday, police searched an apartment at a duplex in the Cudahy neighborhood near Milwaukee where Page apparently lived. Authorities would not say what evidence they found.

The attack came just over two weeks after a gunman killed 12 people at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, where they were watching a screening of new Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises." 

American Sikhs said they have often been singled out for harassment, and occasionally violent attack, since the September 11, 2001 attacks because of their colorful turbans and beards. 

The 2001 attacks were carried out by Muslims linked to the al-Qaida militant group led by Osama bin Laden. Sikhs are not Muslim but many Americans do not know the difference, members of the Sikh community said. 

Some witnesses to the Wisconsin shooting said the suspect had a tattoo marking the September 11, 2001 attacks. Authorities confirmed he had tattoos but said they were not sure exactly what the tattoos illustrated. 

There are 500,000 or more Sikhs in the United States but the community in Wisconsin is small, about 2,500 to 3,000 families, said local Sikhs. 

The Sikh faith is the fifth-largest in the world, with more than 30 million followers. It includes belief in one God and that the goal of life is to lead an exemplary existence. 

The temple in Oak Creek was founded in October 1997 and has a congregation of 350 to 400 people. 

"These people were going to church. Two weeks ago, it was people going to a movie. When is it going to end?" said Ray Zirkle, who came from Racine, Wisconsin with his wife to light votive candles near the site of the shooting. 

On Sunday evening, hundreds gathered in downtown Milwaukee to hold a vigil of for the victims of the shootings, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Participants stood in a circle, prayed and lit candles at the event held at Cathedral Square, and one-by-one people made unscripted statements to the group, according to the newspaper. 

One man recited "The Lord's Prayer."

"This isn't about the city of Oak Creek, we are all responsible," another said, while a third declared: "I'm an atheist and I stand behind every peace loving religion," the newspaper reported.

Members of the Sikh community attended the vigil, the Journal reported. 

"It was same as 9/11," Manpreet Kaur, who attended the vigil with her husband and two daughters, told the newspaper. "My mother-in-law and father-in-law thought that it's not safe for you to go in your turban today." 

NBC's Pete Williams, Jim Miklaszewski and Andrew Mach and Reuters contributed to this report.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• Alleged gunman in Sikh temple shooting ID'd as Army vet
• Sikhs reel after 'senseless' attack: We're not Taliban
• Wounded cop in Sikh termple shooting lauded as hero
• Month after arson attack, Mo. mosque burns again
• Video: Dog-paddling pooch swims with dolphins

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Mobile County Sheriff's Office

Vern Phdsamay, 32, a Laotian immigrant, is accused of beating the head monk of Wat Buddharaksa Temple in St. Elmo, Ala., to death.

ST. ELMO, Ala. — Vern Phdsamay, a Buddhist monk, sits quietly not in his temple along Alabama's Gulf Coast but in a Mobile County jail cell. He's charged with murder, accused of having beaten the temple's chief monk to death last month before calmly washing up and eating dinner.

Once again, the peace at Wat Buddharaksa Temple has been shattered.

In 2008, a fire that was ruled an accident destroyed the temple. It took two years to rebuild.

In 2010, the BP oil spill devastated the economy of the local Laotian and Thai communities served by the temple.

Now it is without its spiritual leader of a dozen years. Prosecutors say Chaiwat Moleechate, 45 — the head monk, who led the work to rebuild the temple — was bludgeoned to death during an argument May 11.

Phdsamay, 32, was quickly arrested and charged with murder. At his bond hearing last month, Assistant District Attorney Jo Beth Murphree said Phdsamay smashed Moleechate on the head at least 12 times with a foot-long wooden pestle. Then, "He went back to his living quarters, showered and washed his clothes, and he went back and ate," she said.

Watch US News videos on msnbc.com

Phdsamay (pronounced PIT-suh-my) was bound over to a grand jury Monday. Penniless because he has sworn a vow of poverty, his lawyer says, he remains in Mobile County Metro Jail on $50,000 bond.

It's not clear exactly when Phdsamay, who speaks no English, joined Wat Buddharaksa. Authorities say he is a legal resident of the U.S., having immigrated from Laos and settled in the area in 2005.

What is clear is that for at least the last three months, Phdsamay had been troubled. He stopped talking and refused to join his fellow monks for meals, and Moleechate (pronounced MOLE-uh-shayt) had been trying to help him, temple members said.

A doctor was brought in to see Phdsamay, but he refused to take any medicine, temple members said. That was when Moleechate began making plans to send him off the grounds for treatment, said Bouasanouuong, a member of the temple's governing committee who, as is customary in some Thai communities, uses one name.

For some time, she said, it seemed that Phdsamay had been "kind of a little bit mental." But no one thought he might be capable of murder.

On May 11, a Friday, Phdsamay and Moleechate had an argument, and at some point Phdsamay's meal was thrown away, prosecutors said. Witnesses said Phdsamay began beating Moleechate with a long stick, later identified as the foot-long wooden pestle.

Chaiwat ended up dead, and Phdsamay — whose jailhouse booking photo shows him with long, red scratch on his neck — ended up in custody on murder charges.

Neil Handley, Phdsamay's attorney, said his client claimed that he got the scratch defending himself from Chaiwat, who he said "came at him" first.

That doesn't square with how temple members remember Reverend Chaiwat, as he was known.

Moleechate was "a very kind person," temple member Steve Chatahuane said. "He helped everyone that needs help."

"Sometimes I ask myself, do good people always go first?" Chatahuane said. "He was one of the good people that I knew."

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• High court strikes down key parts of Arizona immigration law
• High court affirms corporations' right to political spending
• Slow-moving storm Debby drenches Florida
• Calif. teacher, 4 students arrested over alleged hazing
• Police officer shot dead at jazz concert in Denver park
• Video: Florida residents take golf carts to the streets

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook