Weller brothers were aspiring lawyers before perishing in Cd’A fire, father says: ‘They brought joy to me all the time’

Michael Weller was in the Portland area visiting a high school friend when he learned his Coeur d’Alene home was on fire.

He rushed to call his two sons who lived at the home, Wyatt and Garrett Weller, but the calls went straight to voicemail.

“I knew immediately in my heart that they had not made it,” Michael said.

Michael left Oregon right away and arrived at 3:30 a.m. the next day, Nov. 25, at the remains of his West Carnie Road home in the Mica Flats area.

There, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office confirmed he was right.

First responders had found the remains of Garrett, 26; Wyatt, 27; and the family dog in the living room, Michael said. The elder Weller said the preliminary results of the investigation revealed that his two sons and their dog died instantly. Investigators ruled out foul play, he said.

Idaho State Fire Marshal Knute Sandahl said the cause and origin of the fire, which destroyed the home, are under investigation. He said they have a couple of hypotheses, but nothing definitive. They’re awaiting autopsy and toxicology reports from the Kootenai County Coroner’s Office.

Garrett and Wyatt, who were aspiring lawyers, were two of Michael and Shelley Morrison’s five grown children.

Both parents, who are divorced, said Garrett and Wyatt had completely different personalities.

“Wyatt was my adventurous one” and “Garrett was a little more reserved,” Michael said.

He said Wyatt previously worked for an international produce importer in Japan, and even learned the Japanese language. He had traveled to 16 countries for his job.

Before that, he was flown around much of the U.S. doing photoshoots working as a model.

Michael said Wyatt was a “tall, good-looking kid, and one of the most charismatic people you ever met.”

Wyatt returned to the U.S., living in Portland, Seattle and North Dakota, before recently moving back home.

He was extremely excited to start this past week as a paralegal and executive secretary for a law firm in town, Michael said. He received a bachelor’s degree in business from Western Governors University, a private online school, and wanted to get his law degree.

He said his son was a speed reader and excellent writer, and could do about anything he put his mind to.

“He never knew that he wasn’t supposed to be able to do anything,” Michael said. “Whatever it was, he just did it, and he learned how to do whatever he needed to do.”

Michael said Garrett was “my Einstein,” and had just become a member of Mensa, the world’s largest and oldest high-IQ society where members are required to attain an intelligence test score that places them in the top 2% of the population.

Garrett was pursuing a degree in computer science at North Idaho College before his death. He wanted to use that degree to help him become a lawyer in the tech field.

Michael said law seemed to come naturally to his sons.

Wyatt could “read law like it was just a regular story,” and Garrett was photographed in a Coeur d’Alene Press story where he played a prosecuting attorney in a mock trial in a law class he took at Lake City High School.

“It was always there as something they both understood very well,” Michael said.

Prior to attending NIC, Garrett was Michael’s main ranch hand at Mountain View Ranch, which Michael owns and operates at the Carnie Road property.

Along with his father and brother, Garrett lived with his partner at the home. She was at work when the fire started, Michael said.

The Weller brothers were born in Colfax and moved around to places like California and Montana with their mother and father, who was in the U.S. Air Force.

The family moved to the Carnie Road home in the early 2010s.

Michael said his children worked with him on the ranch growing up. In recent weeks, the brothers checked on the cows and drove around the spacious acreage on their side-by-side.

“In the four weeks that Wyatt had come back, Garrett and Wyatt had really developed a really tight relationship and doing all sorts of things together,” Michael said.

He said everything at the ranch reminds him of his sons, from the battery on the side-by-side Garrett installed to a stack of firewood one of them organized.

“Everything that I touch out here on the ranch, everywhere I’ve gone, there’s something that reminds me of them,” Michael said.

He said seeing them everywhere is comforting, because he knows his sons and their memories will always be there.

“I enjoy the memories knowing that I do have those memories, but I also know that I’ll never be able to talk with them again,” Michael said.

He said he fondly recalls Wyatt walking in the door, saying, “Hey, Pops.” Garrett would commonly say, “You know, I was thinkin,’ ” or “I got an idea.”

Michael said he and his family have spent the last couple of weeks sharing stories about the two men. Michael has relied on his faith to get him through the tragedy.

“I didn’t realize how strong my faith was until this happened, so I’ve pretty much been putting it in God’s hands and going from there,” he said.

Michael has since moved into a house his cousin owns in Coeur d’Alene. He plans to rebuild his Carnie Road home, which his great-grandfather built on the family’s homestead. He estimated the house was built in the 1930s.

Two GoFundMe pages raised nearly $23,000 for the Weller family, including one that garnered over $17,000. He said the money could go toward rebuilding and/or a scholarship or something similar to honor his sons.

“I was very lucky to experience them for as long as I did,” Michael said. “They brought joy to me all the time.”