Jackson, MI: UPDATE: 'He snapped,' says friend of Jason Wilson, who is believed to have killed his wife, then hanged himself

Barbara Wilson recently told her husband their relationship was ending, family and friends of Jason Wilson said.
“He snapped. He tried to hold it together and tried to put it on the back burner, and he couldn’t do it,” said Dana Horn, a longtime friend of Jason Wilson’s mother, Sharon Ramalia.
Jackson County sheriff’s deputies found both Jason Nathaniel Wilson, 35, and his wife of 19 months, Barbara Jean Wilson, 29, dead early Monday inside their house on Hillside Avenue in Summit Township.
It appears Wilson killed his wife and then himself, according to a sheriff’s office statement. As of Monday, the sheriff’s office had not released the causes of death.
Wilson choked his wife to death and then hanged himself in the basement, said Horn, who was sitting next to Ramalia at Ramalia’s apartment in Jackson on Monday afternoon. As Horn spoke, Ramalia nodded. The police gave her information, Ramalia said.
“You can only imagine what was going through his head, the turmoil, the pain,” Horn said of Jason Wilson.
He couldn’t handle the hurt, she said. “This is a man who was totally in love with a woman, and he totally went off the deep end.”
Deputies were called about midnight Monday to 330 Hillside Ave., west of Francis Street and just outside the Jackson city limits. Barbara Wilson had not shown up for work and police were asked to check on her welfare, according to the statement.
Barbara Wilson worked nights at a book binding company in Ann Arbor, said Carl Fosbender of Columbia Township, who worked with her. He declined to specify the company.
Fosbender’s wife was the maid of honor at the Wilsons’ April 2009 wedding. She was not home Monday night.
Efforts to talk to Barbara Wilson’s family were not successful. Her sister, who answered the phone at Wilson’s family’s home in Ypsilanti, declined comment.
Sister Kya Rose married the two. She said it was a beautiful wedding with between 50 and 75 guests gathering at Gene Davis & Sons banquet hall on Francis Street. She said the couple met at work.
“They were working together and fell in love,” Rose said.
Jason Wilson did not have a documented history of violence. In Jackson County, he has only a misdemeanor conviction and some traffic offenses on his record. His wife had not filed for divorce nor requested a personal protection order, court records show.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” John Webb, who knew Jason Wilson since seventh grade, said of the events.
Wilson had come to Webb’s home on Saturday, and talked about possibly hiring a lawyer, about making sure he did not lose his possessions in the split. “What we talked about was moving on. The next step,” Webb said.
Sheriff’s deputies have been twice to their house this month, once to take a report on a damaged vehicle and another time for a “verbal domestic.” The two had gotten into an argument Nov. 16, Undersheriff Tom Finco said, but no one went to jail. There were no injuries or signs of physical abuse, Finco said.
The couple have no children together.
Jason Wilson has a son, 14, and a daughter, 12, from a previous marriage. The children live with their mother and visited their father on weekends, Ramalia said.
Jason Wilson worked as a certified nursing assistant at a retirement center in Chelsea, Ramalia said.
Webb said he got the certification about six months ago. Prior to that, he worked at the same company as his wife and at another book manufacturing business in Chelsea, Webb said.
They had been together about eight years, said Ramalia, who spoke little on Monday afternoon.
A box of tissue sat next to her on a table and she repeatedly wiped tears from her eyes. A friend held her arm.
“This is a family that is torn apart by a senseless tragedy,” Horn said.