Ciera Breland: Mother, Lawyer, Missing

Buying burner phones and reciting the classic statement to relatives and friends, "If anything happens to me, he's responsible," are signs that you should immediately vacate the relationship. But, not enough women heed the red flags.

Breland's cousin said she began living in fear and stated, "I'm really scared and idk (I don't know) what to do," according to reports. And now, February 25 was the last time Indiana police said that Ciera's husband, Xavier Breland claimed he saw his wife. Statements from those closest to the Brelands have reasons for concern.

"We all told her to leave him," Ciera's cousin said. "We didn't like what we were seeing. She's very smart. She never put up with anything from anyone. We all told her she had a safe place to go." Indiana investigators say the family witnessed Breland verbally and physically abuse Ciera.

Relatives say the 31-year-old mother was hit in the face with a gun, had her head bashed through a window, and objects thrown at her while pregnant. Ciera was planning to walk away from her allegedly savage husband, but did she make the fatal mistake, which is a common one, of telling him she was leaving?

DomesticShelter.org lists some of the reasons women don't "just leave," and many don't apply to Ciera. The domestic organization says a lack of an advocate is the principal cause. But, Ciera had a loyal family unit in place.

The abusive spouse's political influence is another ground. Ciera was the lawyer. So, why didn't she leave before her murder? If there is a playbook on how to leave your abusive husband, Ciera didn't follow it and had so much to protect and lose.

Indiana Police say Breland is the only person of interest, but he is in custody at a Georgia county jail for stalking his ex-wife. With Ciera's family convinced she never made it out of Georgia, where they were moving from because of the tension between he and his ex-wife, police suspicions may be accurate.

Authorities say Breland put a tracker on his former wife's car and is on surveillance video standing in front of the Georga woman's home. Breland reported Ciera missing a day after saying she left their Indiana residence in February and has not been seen since.

The familiar episode ends with the husband leading investigators to an isolated wooded area or a landfill after his wife's body was dumped in a garbage dumpster in another town.

Perhaps Ciera is at the bottom of a lake or cased in cement somewhere in the parts of Indiana where the state is used to keeping these kinds of macabre secrets. Wherever the lawyer and mother of an infant son is, the odds that she is still alive are grim.