JACKSON, MI – Ray Binschus had two daughters, worked as a machine operator and enjoyed his frequent visits to the golf course.

"Oh, there were lots of good times, lots of them. He was one to have good times, and when you did, he'd put a smile on your face," Binschus' wife, Karen, said this week.

Clearly distraught, Karen Binschus was sitting on a sofa on her enclosed front porch. Her hands were shaky and tears came easily to her eyes.

Workers at Cascade Falls Park found Ray Binschus' body May 28 on the ninth green of the park's short golf course, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office reported.

As of Wednesday, June 4, investigators did not have a coroner's report on the death, but there is no reason to conclude it was anything other than a suicide, Sheriff Steve Rand said.

Binschus, 49, is believed to have used a rifle to shoot himself in the chest, the sheriff said.

He received the gun from his grandfather when the older man died. "I didn't even know it worked," Karen Binschus said.

Recently, Ray Binschus' father died and he and his wife were having financial difficulties. All was not perfect, she said. But she had no answers. She did not see this coming and he left no note.

"I just can't believe he did that. I just can't," she said.

"I don't know. I just don't get it. I'm not ever going to get it."

The pair married in 1996. They have two daughters, ages 16 and 20. "I've never been in love with another man in my whole life," Karen Binschus said.

For about the last three years, Ray Binschus worked at United Metal Technology Inc. on Monroe Street and he was looking to start a new job, she said.

His world revolved around his family, she said. "Always, the kids and me come first."

She called him a "damn good man," a guy who put groceries in older women's cars.

Every weekend, he golfed. His brothers would accompany him, eating breakfast at Karen and Ray Binschus' house before going to the course.

He would golf at the Cascades, she said. "He loved that."