Two weeks later, the twin now faces murder charges. He made his first court appearance Monday in Surrey provincial court and was remanded in custody until his next appearance Friday.
The arrest came just two days before a memorial was scheduled for Darryl.
The twin brothers lived at the home with their father, Carr said.
However, neighbours said Jason, who has sons aged two and eight, lived with his dad at the house, while Darryl often stayed elsewhere. The family had three Rottweilers.
"It's sad if his brother had something to do with it," said Rhonda Hanley, who runs the Bridgeview Community Centre a few blocks from the Weismiller home.
"I couldn't picture it," said Hanley. "I wouldn't say they were always hugging, but they were like normal brothers."
Neighbours said they had never had trouble with the Weismillers, who live in an older home.
Hanley said the twin brothers often met each other at the community centre or took the children to a nearby park.
She said Darryl would paint over graffiti at the community centre and mowed lawns for people in the neighbourhood.
"He was a good kid," she said. "He's been very helpful around here."
Another neighbour, Sadie Croaker, sobbed as she recalled how Darryl, "a good stand-up fellow," insisted on cutting her lawn when she was 20 weeks pregnant.
Croaker said people in the neighbourhood looked out for each other, their kids played outside together and they'd take care of each other's dogs if they got loose out of their yards.
She said the Weismillers -- the father, three sons and a daughter -- often had Sunday dinners together.
"They are a good family," said Croaker, a nursing student. "They are not a party family. They have kids and grandkids living there. I do know they made an honest living."
She said the twins had an argument the night of Darryl's death.
"I just think the family should have time to grieve," she added. "They lost one of their family members and it's sad. It's just upsetting; he was a young fellow, he had a job, he was getting his life on track."
The act of killing one's brother is known as fratricide, an uncommon form of homicide, said Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd, a murder specialist. The murder of an identical twin by the other twin is even more rare, he said.
"Fraternal twins, in a general sense, are not much different than other siblings," Boyd explained. "But I think there is a twin psychology between identical twins that is different."
He said a homicide between fraternal twins would likely involve similar circumstances surrounding most fratricide cases -- a sibling dispute that gets out of control. Police would not release any details about the slaying, saying the matter is before the court.
Man sentenced to 33 months for killing twin
Tom Zytaruk - Surrey Now
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Every time Jason Weismiller looks in a mirror, he'll see the brother he killed.
The 27-year-old Surrey man was sentenced Tuesday to 33 months in prison for stabbing his identical twin brother to death with a screwdriver during a drunken fight at their dad's house in Bridgeview on July 14, 2007.
Originally charged with second-degree murder, Jason Weismiller pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Crown prosecutor Sandra di Curzio laid out the tragic facts in Surrey provincial court. At 1:32 a.m. last July 14 Jason called 911 for an ambulance, saying his brother wasn't breathing. Asked what happened, he replied "He's drunk, he's drunk, I don't know" and hung up the phone.
The 911 operator called back a minute later and left a message on the answering machine saying that they didn't attend "unknown" scenes without the police there and for him to call back immediately. Jason called again, asking for an ambulance, and said he'd found his diabetic brother on the floor. He denied there'd been a fight. The dispatcher told him to perform CPR, which he did. The dispatcher could hear Jason saying "Darryl, get up, wake up."
Paramedics and Surrey RCMP officers found Jason on the street, crying and yelling for them to help his brother.
He was then taken to the Surrey RCMP detachment. "He was argumentative and uncooperative with police, stating that he wanted to stay with his brother," di Curzio said. Darryl was pronounced dead at 2:15 a.m. Jason told police he'd spent the day with his family and found his brother passed out on the living room floor and not breathing when he returned to the house.
A neighbour, however, testified he'd heard the twins arguing on their front deck that night. Jason's common-law wife told police Jason phoned her and she could hear Darryl calling him a "fat f-k" and "lazy slob, and Jason telling him to shut up and leave him alone.
"Darryl was screaming 'f-k you, you want to see what I got' and so on," di Curzio noted. "Jason then stated that he had to go because Darryl was going to get a knife and a baseball bat and then he hung up. Only Darryl and Jason Weismiller were in the residence."
The court heard that the twins were apprehended by the state when they were toddlers and were subsequently adopted by Robert Weismiller and his wife. The Weismillers divorced when the twins were 12 and Robert, who works at a local door company, raised the boys by himself. Darryl was still living with his dad while Jason, who has a common-law wife and two young sons, stayed with them periodically.
On the day of the killing, Jason had spent the day with his wife and kids before returning to the house, where Darryl had been drinking hard. Both men, the court heard, suffered from severe alcoholism. Defence lawyer Kelly Merrigan told the court that Darryl had been taunting Jason with a screwdriver and jabbing at him with it.
As the twins grappled, he said, Jason wrestled the screwdriver from him and "lashed out in anger," stabbing him. The court heard Darryl, whose blood alcohol content was four times the legal driving limit, died of massive blood loss after the screwdriver was thrust into his upper back and severed his aorta. Merrigan told the court that Jason "had no intention to kill his twin.
"He's devastated ... I rather suspect suicidal," Merrigan said. "He loved his brother dearly."
Jason wept during the sentencing hearing, as did his father. The Crown argued for a sentence of three years in prison - less time served - and three years probation, while the defence argued for a prison term of 30 months.
Judge Ellen Gordon sentenced Jason Weismiller to 33 months in prison less 20 months for time already served, meaning he will serve 13 more months in jail. This is to be followed by three years probation.
Co-prosecutor Winston Sayson said the verdict "demonstrated the depth of this tragedy.
"There are certainly no winners here."