Frandi is believed to have killed a Czech hitchhiker near Waimate at the weekend.
Waimate resident Jenny Fattorini described Frandi as the "sort of chap who kept to himself", but added he had always been friendly.
"I live just opposite Jason's house, and although I don't really know him he would always smile and wave.
"I think everyone is a bit shocked."
Frandi's next-door neighbour, Ken Baker, said he had always found the man to be "a nice bloke", but Waimate resident Toni Kerr said she had heard stories of previous unsavoury "antics" attributed to Frandi.
A 31-year-old single female, living a street away from Frandi's Smith St address, said the incident had left her "very uneasy".
A close friend of Frandi, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, said the Waimate local came from a troubled background.
"He had a number of issues.
"He didn't talk too much about his family other than that there were problems there. He kept things to himself.
"He was a loner, basically.
"Somebody else has said exactly the same thing, and he was."
His father, Arthur Frandi, a barman at the local town and country club, died of cancer a few years ago.
"Jason took it reasonably hard but I don't think that's the only problem. He comes from a troubled background."
The two met when working in the forest when Frandi was a teenager.
"Once we got him into work he came right and he got bit more confidence in the team we were in and he became a good guy, he was a really good guy. We had no troubles with him.
"He was a very powerful individual - very strong - but he didn't use that against anybody, to my knowledge, but he certainly had that very physical presence. He was a very capable forestry worker, one that all the guys in our team looked up to.
"He sort of set the standard out there."
Frandi used to retreat to the forestry block where his body was found on Sunday when he became angry, he said.
"When I look back, he did have some problems regarding his family, and some other things. He used to get a bit upset sometimes so he used to go off on his own into the forest and then come back some time later and he'd be OK. But he did have moments."
The friend said he had tried to nurture Frandi when he was a troubled teenager.
"I did take him under my wing to some extent when he was younger and I felt he sort of came right when he had a good job.
"I feel a bit sad that I didn't pick up something when I saw him last week, but you can't look at things in the past tense."
