Disclaimer: All facts gleaned from the filings stated hereafter are only as truthful as the petitioner. The tone of this article expresses a style of writing historically employed by America’s greatest writers and, as such, is for opinion purposes only. No intentional harm is due. Do not read if the topic of divorce (even your own) causes you emotional distress. Continue at your own risk.

A marriage once begun on a warm June day in 2009 now stands as a quiet testament to the drift of years and the slow erosion of closeness. Filed January 5, 2026, in St. Louis County, Missouri, Andre Lamont Mangrum petitions to dissolve his marriage to Samantha Sherelle Mangrum, acknowledging a bond that fractured as far back as November 5, 2011. The filing, arriving at the start of a new year, contrasts sharply with the year-end petitions that often carry the frenzied energy of last-minute reckoning. Here, the beginning of January suggests reflection, the sober weighing of what cannot be restored.

Both parties have lived in St. Louis County for over thirteen years and are able-bodied and self-supporting, needing neither maintenance nor financial aid from the other. The couple has no children, and their property and debts have been organized into a marital settlement and separation agreement as of the filing date. The petition requests the court to dissolve the marriage, set aside each party’s separate property, divide marital property and debts fairly, deny maintenance to either party, and restore Samantha’s maiden name of “Samantha Sherelle Bradley.” Further, the petitioner asks for all other relief the court deems just and proper.

Represented by Michael P. Cohan of The Cohan Law Firm, LLC, the filing reads less like litigation and more like a map of human consequence, a catalog of what endures, what is divided, and what must be relinquished. In the stark formalities of the court, it is the quiet admission of a long-lost intimacy, reduced to property, names, and carefully measured relief. The document frames the end of a shared life with the clarity of finality, both ordinary and unsettling.

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