Friends recall couple

Several co-workers who knew Kelsi Miller Weaver remembered her as a spontaneous and animated woman who cheered up the people around her. But they also were aware she was in a volatile relationship with husband Jarrett Weaver, one that ended in an apparent murder-suicide when their bodies were found at their apartment Tuesday.

"She was real random," said Carrie Kennedy, a hostess at the Harrigan's restaurant where Kelsi worked as a waitress. "She would just come up with things out of the blue."

Kelsi Miller went to high school in Rankin before her family moved to Iraan. An associate from Rankin said she minded her grades while balancing out her cheerleading activities in school.

"She was a smart kid," said Codi Evans, a Town & Country store clerk in Rankin whose sister knew Kelsi through her little sister.

Kelsi eventually met Jarrett Weaver and they married in May 2007, according to the Odessa American archives.

Kennedy and a waiter at the restaurant, who is a former Permian High School classmate to Jarrett Weaver who declined to name himself, described Jarrett as a power weightlifter who jammed out on a guitar with his own blues-rock band back when they were in school.

"In high school he was a really good guy," the waiter said.

But, he added, he was using steroids later in his high school days and he said Weaver's personality became more aggressive. By their senior year at Permian, he said he quit hanging out with him.

Since Jarrett and Kelsi Weaver married, the relationship quickly grew abusive, they all suggested.

Evans said she met Jarrett Weaver once with Kelsi, and immediately disliked him. Since then, she said she heard the relationship became increasingly difficult.

The waiter said that Jarrett called for Kelsi frequently while she was at work there.

Manager Elly Naegele and assistant manager April Akers both said that on Saturday night, three days before police found both of them dead, Jarrett Weaver made an unexpected trip to Harrigan's to look for her.

Naegele, who did not see Kelsi that night, heard "she was visibly shaken" after Jarrett left, the manager said. "I knew she was separating."

The Odessa Police Department, meanwhile, has not released any new information on the deaths since the bodies were found Tuesday. Cpl. Sherrie Carruth said that investigators were waiting for autopsies to be performed on both of them at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's office in Fort Worth before they would disclose the caliber of the gun that was found in their apartment. She also would not state whether it was Jarrett or Kelsi Weaver who fired the gun.