006 · Will and Stephanie

The Whole Story, as Objectively Possible

Compiled entirely from Will's own notes. Where a statement is his interpretation rather than an event, it is attributed to him. Nothing here comes from outside the vault.

The Beginning (2001 to 2004)

William Sario, called Will, met Stephanie Nicole Mohr in high school in the same small California town. They began dating immediately after graduating in 2001; she was his first girlfriend. By his own description he had poor grades, no degree, and a habit of getting into a little trouble, and felt lost until he fell in love with her. From then on, his family became his everything.

They dated a little more than four years while she attended college, hardly going a day without talking. Will describes himself as always chasing her. In October 2004 they were married. Early on they promised each other that if either ever looked elsewhere, it was over, no questions needed. Will says he married her because when he asked what she wanted for dinner, she told him; he trusted her honesty completely and built everything on it.

Building a Life (2004 to 2019)

Both went to work for Will's father's construction company, RSco. Stephanie was a bookkeeper and controller; Will was an operator and superintendent. Molly was born on December 12, 2006, and Willy in 2008.

For the first ten years Will often worked out of town, home mostly on weekends, and worked long hours even when local. It was hard for him to be part of the kids' lives. He describes this as the harder stretch of the marriage: Stephanie was angrier, the fights were bigger, things were thrown, he was struck. After the children were born he went through a period of depression with suicidal thoughts while working away from home.

Around 2013 the company slowly went out of business. Will stayed home with the kids while Stephanie finished up, and then they started a remote bookkeeping business together. Their roles reversed: she did the day-to-day work and was the face of the business; he handled planning and the hardware and software that let her work efficiently. "Perspective," he says, was his job while she handled the daily grind. On Hill Drive, where they lived for a time, he brought her lunch, rubbed her shoulders, and tended to her "hand and foot"; he calls it the best job he ever had. It was also there, after one of their worst fights, that they promised to always go to bed together no matter how angry they were.

The family toured the continental United States twice in a travel trailer they called Homie, which everyone said was too small. Stephanie has always called those her favorite years, and Will lists them among the best of his life.

Their personalities were opposite in almost every way: Stephanie lived in the moment, Will was over-focused on the future; he pushed for talking about feelings, while her default under stress was avoidance and denial. They had more large arguments than he can count, and they always ended the same way: either Will gave up, or Stephanie literally ran out the door. He would pick her up, sometimes miles down the road in her pajamas, she would calm down enough to say what was wrong, and he would fix it. He caught her hitting herself more than once; the only times he ever touched her without permission, he says, was to stop that.

The Move to Oregon (2019)

After the second trailer trip they were ready for what Stephanie called "another adventure." Molly reminded them of their favorite place from the tour, and in 2019 the family moved to Oregon, about 700 miles from Exeter. The reasons were the weather, the air quality for Willy, who had respiratory issues in California, Molly's bad luck at her school, and the beauty of the place. Will insists it was a family decision, Molly's idea and as much Stephanie's choice as his. Shortly before the move, he notes, Stephanie and her mother Cindy were not getting along.

They bought a run-down house on beautiful property near North Bend. It needed far more maintenance than expected; a leaky pipe could mean a three-day event hiking a thousand feet with tools on his back. The kids were starting high school. Stephanie kept an office in town, at first for the internet connection, which Will says soon became her escape. Will himself had too much to do but was excited about it; for the first time in his life he wanted to get out of bed in the morning. He calls it the pinnacle of his life.

The Growing Distance (2020 to 2023)

Six months to a year after the move, Stephanie became noticeably sadder. The first sign Will names is that she was no longer already smiling when he walked into a room. She tried several churches without finding a fit and did not want to meet the neighbors. Will, a lifelong introvert, became the social one, getting the family invited to barbecues explicitly to find her friends. She turned the invitations down.

His best guess is that she missed her family, her friends, and her Pilates, and that having been as excited about the move as anyone, she faced regret for the first time and could not cope with it. Stephanie, by his account, has never been able to accept having made a mistake. She denied missing Exeter when he asked, but he had privately begun searching for property there.

He also acknowledges he was giving her less attention than before the move. He asked her for space and doubled down on work, promising things would be "that much more grand" once he caught up; he is ashamed of how many times he said that. He bought a downtown building in North Bend, the gown shop, because she wanted an office and a place to dream about a yarn shop, and worked around the clock for six months building it out for her. Meanwhile the Rodriguez women's group had begun, and Stephanie was talking to her mother more and more. The more she talked to Cindy, Will says, the less she talked to him.

Will did what he had done for twenty years: he asked what was wrong and how he could help. She seemed to hear every question as an accusation. Where he used to wait months between raising a subject, this time he did not back off, partly because he felt they had no time for the old pattern and partly because he resented always carrying the "relationship overhead." He calls it "hammering," and takes full responsibility for pushing too hard and too fast.

By his account she came to associate him with the bad feeling, then began looking for reasons to be angry. She saw his truck parked behind the print shop next to their building, where the owner's daughter, an addict, lived upstairs, and accused him of being with "crack whores"; he had been inside talking to the owner about renovating that building. She later apologized, but the image never left her. She decided he was doing drugs with Jerry, a homeless man Will let sleep in his building over the winter.

Will was taking medication for anxiety and depression. He says he and Stephanie had decided together to source it outside the normal channel, and that she had bought it for him. She raised concern about the "drugs" exactly twice before she left, both times in passing, and both times he said he had no problem stopping. There was also a house fire, which Will attributes to a chimney the previous occupants had left separated inside an attic wall; he would later hear it blamed on him cooking meth in the wall three feet from Willy's bed.

There were still good days. They shared a bed and laughed together, though less often; near the end, Will estimates, about half the time. Days before she left they had a wonderful day kayaking for her birthday, and he photographed her sitting in her chair looking content.

In January 2023, Stephanie told Will directly that she no longer really thought about him anymore, as she planned summer trips to Exeter with the kids while he tried to plan for the whole family. Will dates her emotional departure to this moment at the latest. A month before she left, she began moving money out of joint accounts into her own, saying he would spend it on drugs. Two weeks before, she said, "I just can't do this." He thought she meant the argument they were having. She told him later that had been the warning.

The Day She Left (September 18, 2023)

On September 18, 2023, they argued by phone about her accusations. When she called him dangerous, Will said maybe she should not come home that night. He did not mean it. Thirty to forty-five minutes later he called back to apologize and say that if anyone should leave for the night it should be him. She was already on the road without reception.

In that interval, Stephanie had called her parents, Rich and Cindy Mohr, hysterical. Will's understanding is that they told her not to go back, and when she insisted on returning for the dog, Charlee, they called the sheriff. She arrived to get the dog. Will told her he would do whatever she wanted and begged her to stay. As he leaned in on her side mirror to speak more softly, she flinched back as though he were going to hit her. He knew then, he says, that she was leaving and was beyond his reach. He stepped back and let her drive away as the sheriff arrived. She told him he had denied her right to be safe.

Stephanie took the children to an Airbnb in town and kept the location secret. She told them not to answer if he called and to turn off their location sharing. Willy texted his father one evening without her knowing, asking why his dad would not just do what she said. Will assured him he would, and was agreeing to everything in texts to Stephanie at the same time. Her demands, he says, grew as he agreed.

During the two weeks at the Airbnb, Stephanie told the children, by their later account to Will, that their father was a drug addict, that the best thing they could do was leave him alone, and that if they went back he would die. They were also told they would lose the house if they stayed in Oregon, and that if they went home with him they would end up in foster care. She pulled them out of school for correspondence courses. They left the state, Will says, without being able to pack a toothbrush; she called him from the road on the way to California. They moved into the B Street house in Exeter that Will's sister Lauren ran as an Airbnb.

Meeting the Demands (Fall 2023)

Stephanie gave Will a list of "boundaries." The central one was that he "stop doing drugs" before they could "start to talk about the possibility of maybe working something out." He discontinued his medication and took repeated drug tests, keeping the sticks on a paper plate with the dates written on them. Stephanie confirmed in late November 2023 that he had stopped.

He let her have the children, the business, the gown shop, and all their money, and took on $30,000 in joint debt. He put tens of thousands more on credit cards renovating the Oregon house. Lauren offered to pay for rehab; he failed the intake interview because he was not an addict. He proposed marriage counseling, a trial separation without lawyers, therapists, and a legal arbitrator; she refused them all. He asked her pastor to encourage her to talk; the pastor said it was not his place.

On his first visit to Exeter, Will slept on the couch at B Street and believed they were making progress. Then, after Stephanie told Lauren about his "shoe-box of drugs," Lauren forbade him from the property under penalty of law and, Will says, got the Exeter police involved. Stephanie felt she had to respect her sister-in-law's wishes. Will counts this among the biggest reasons they never came back together.

Christmas 2023: The Turning Point

Three months after leaving, Stephanie and the children came back to Oregon so she could move out of the office in town. By then Will had checked every box on her list and more. She saw the plate of test sticks and, he says, knew it was true. It was the last time she smiled at him. Willy wanted to stay the night with his father; Stephanie panicked over his safety but allowed it.

On the last night, Will and Stephanie went to dinner alone and laughed; Will says things were finally right. Then, as the check came, she interrupted him: "You know we are going back to Exeter no matter what you say or do, right? I promised." Upset, he waited while she signed the check, then walked out ahead of her and got in his truck. He counts that among his mistakes. He also says it was the night he truly turned to God.

After Christmas 2023, Stephanie did not once make herself available to talk. He met her in person only three times after she left, never for more than half an hour, always in public. When he asked why she would not see him alone, she said it was because he would convince her to come home. The more he shared his growing faith, he says, the less she responded, until she stopped entirely and blocked his number. In one of the few things she did say, she admitted she had taken the kids to hurt him, though she believed it was for the best.

Exeter, the Police, and the Restraining Order (2024)

Will kept driving down to Exeter. The visits started well, he says, until someone raised the stakes and he either left or was run out of town. He skipped his grandfather's funeral because Stephanie had already RSVP'd and he did not want police at the service; his mother resented his absence.

Once, he and Stephanie sat parked in front of the house she was renting, talking. Ten or fifteen minutes later an officer knocked to ask if she was okay; Will notes the building's security camera fed to Cindy's phone. Another time his truck was parked outside the Mohrs' house while he stood in their back yard talking with Rich and Bud, and a patrol car pulled up. Cindy has said she never called the police. Will counts at least three times.

Rich accidentally sent Will a text meant for Stephanie recommending she divorce him. Her parents told Will to his face that Stephanie had never been happy because of him, only in spite of him; he went into shock and hung up. Rich's word for Will was "master manipulator," and his advice was to do what Stephanie said and get a life. Will did. He remembers Rich publicly condemning Aunt Pam's ex-husband for refusing to reconcile after her affair; the Mohr household, he says, had always taken the Bible literally and treated divorce as a last resort.

Stephanie allowed both kids to visit Will in Oregon without her, but would not let him be alone with Willy. On Memorial Day 2024, Will asked to take Willy for a drive to the family cabin at Hartland to teach him windy roads. Stephanie's face went wide and she told him that if he was ever alone in a car with the boy she would charge him with kidnapping.

In mid-September 2024, during a visit, Willy came to his father crying with his bag packed, saying he wanted to come home. Will told him to get in the truck while Stephanie protested. Before they turned the corner he texted her that he would have Willy back by curfew and confirmed his location was shared with his own father. They drove around while Willy talked. Will spent the drive convincing him to stay in Exeter and look after "the girls," and returned him before curfew. Both children were then questioned by authorities, and Will was charged with kidnapping. Lauren called what he had done "coercion."

Stephanie obtained a restraining order requiring Will to stay 1,000 feet from her and both children for five years, until Molly's twenty-third birthday. He learned of it when it was served. Will has never been in a fight and says he does not squash bugs. He complied fully.

On December 12, 2024, Will missed Molly's eighteenth birthday. In January 2025 he sent what he intended to be his last letter to Stephanie. On January 17, 2025, a court hearing modified custody; he had not been notified, and his mother learned the date from Stephanie over coffee at Starbucks.

Alone (2025 to 2026)

Will stayed in Oregon, out of respect for Stephanie's boundaries and because he believed showing up unwelcome in Exeter would harm the kids. He worked out a lease-back arrangement with a neighbor so the property would still be there, which he says mattered to Willy especially. He moved into a container for a time because he could not sleep in Stephanie's bed. His weight climbed toward 350 pounds and later came back down.

His own family had heard the story from Exeter. His sisters amplified the drug accusations. His parents told him he needed to change and control his anger; they did not, he says, ask anything of Stephanie. One relative who questioned the restraining order was cut off from the kids until her attitude changed. His mother blocked his number. When he came to Exeter to be near his children, he was chased off. His family, he says, "held a place" for him by filling it, with Lauren's house, welcome parties, and vacations. Eventually they stopped speaking to him except for occasional updates that seemed chosen to hurt.

Will wrote. Over three years he produced more than a thousand pages of letters to Stephanie, the children, his family, the Mohrs, and Stephanie's pastor. He built a theory for what never made sense to him: that for a family that condemned divorce, Stephanie needed a scriptural exit, and the only one available was an unbelieving husband who drives his wife out, which is why every accusation was about his character rather than the marriage, and why his faith made things worse. In nearly every letter he asked the same thing: that someone ask Stephanie why she left, and whether she wanted to move.

His faith deepened. He joined a men's group and later found a Christian neighbor to talk with. He says he has not prayed once since Christmas 2023 without praying for Stephanie.

In 2026, his mother told him, out of anger, that Stephanie was seeing someone. He looked into the man: Gustavo Delacruz, a member of her congregation, with a domestic violence charge within the past year, a drug record going back more than a decade, and children with three different women. Will wrote that he supports Stephanie and her new man without fine print, and that of the two things he ever wanted, making Stephanie happy is now handled by someone else, leaving only being a father. He also wrote that he had never once pictured being compared to another man, and that it hit him flat.

Willy, the last time Will spoke with him, wanted to come home. Will has since heard secondhand that his son has "failed to launch." Both children now, he says, know him as poison. As of September 2026, Will has had no contact with Stephanie or his children for three years and has never been told why she left. He calls returning Willy to her the biggest regret of his life. He still considers himself her husband, intends to keep his vows for the rest of his life, and says he loves her more every day.