True Crime Society – Lawyer Ciera Breland – missing since 2022

Lawyer Ciera Breland was 31 when she vanished on February 24, 2022. She was married to a man named Xavier Breland at the time, and the two had an infant son, Jackson.

Ciera Nichole Locklair was born in Georgia on January 10, 1991 to parents Nick and Kelly Locklair. Ciera grew up in Georgia and dreamed of living in Atlanta one day. “She was a Georgia girl,” Kelly said. “Atlanta was her plan all along.”

Her mother Kelly told Dateline that Ciera had always been a fighter. She had dealt with some health issues when she was younger.

“She overcame and pushed through,” Kelly said. “She was happy. She was energetic. She was loving.

Online reports indicate that Kelly worked as a paralegal and that Ciera decided to follow down the route of a legal career.

Ciera knew she would become a lawyer. She was extremely driven in her career.”“She just decided she was gonna be a lawyer and there was just — that was gonna be the end of it,” Kelly told Dateline. “She worked really hard.”

Ciera moved to Tennessee and attended university there. She then went on to attend law school at Florida State University. She became a lawyer, specializing in insurance defense.

Ciera was said to be a devoted aunt to her niece and nephew. She loved to take them shopping for Christmas and back-to-school supplies.

Through it all, Ciera was still extremely focused on her family. “I mean, her father would talk to her sometimes, 5-6 hours a day,” Kelly said, adding that they’d mostly talk about their days and what was going on in their lives. (This seems excessive?)

“Very outgoing. Likes sports, likes movies,” Ciera’s father, Nick Locklair, told Dateline in 2022. “And she was really fun, until about a year ago.”

It was around that time (a year prior) that Ciera met a man named Xavier Breland. Some reports say that they met on Tinder, while others (Dateline) say that Ciera was representing Xavier on some legal issues. There are quite a few conflicting reports in this case, so we will note them as we come across them. This was happening during the end of the 2020 part of the pandemic. “She was bubbling over with love,” Kelly said. “They were inseparable.”

Her father Nick said that he was very protective of Ciera in terms of the men she dated, but that Xavier ‘treated her like a queen.’

Xavier had been married before and has at least one child from previous relationships- a daughter. In 2005, he was convicted on felony burglary charges.

This info about other alleged history is from abovethelaw.com:

Source told FOX 5 News he had warrants associated with harassing phone calls and violating a family violence order. In 2007, court records indicate he was arrested in Florida and extradited to Indiana on a fugitive warrant.

Ciera’s cousin Shelby Campbell has said there were issues in Ciera and Xavier’s relationship early on.

“There were some messages that were on a different phone that I turned over to police, so I don’t have access to those now, but it was when they first started dating where she was scared of him,” Shelby said. “Something happened and she had called it off with him… She was hanging out with a separate friend who was a male at her apartment and he showed up at her apartment without being invited and was sitting outside her apartment. He started sending her a bunch of threatening texts about hanging out with another male.”

Dateline says that Ciera and Xavier married in 2020. The North East Georgian stated that Ciera became pregnant in April 2021 and that she and Xavier were married by a Justice of the Peace via Zoom shortly after that.

The couple moved to Carmel, Indiana. Xavier’s father lived in that area. Ciera got a job working for the Indianapolis office of Gordon Rees.

Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, LLP, commonly referred to as “Gordon Rees” or more recently, “GRSM”, is an AmLaw 100 law firm based in the United States, with more than 1,800 lawyers practicing in all 50 states.

Their son Jackson was born in October 2021.

At Christmas 2021, according to the North East Georgian, Ciera and Xavier went to visit her parents. They both apparently looked ‘haggard and run down.’ There is a ‘Disappeared’ episode about Ciera’s case and in that episode, Nick said that they were worried someone was chasing them.

They said that Xavier’s ex-wife was involved with some kind of drug cartel situation.

“She feared for her life, she lost weight,” Kelly said on the show. “This is not Ciera. This is not my daughter.”

Kelly added that she felt “Xavier was manipulating her, keeping her in a paranoid and afraid state for his own purposes.”

Ciera’s cousin Shelby has said that she knew there were physical altercations between the couple. Ciera sent her photos of some alleged injuries that she sustained in the fights, in case they were later needed for court proceedings. Ciera also told Shelby that she had been putting money into a secret account so that she could leave Xavier. “I’m done. I’m leaving. I don’t want this any more,” Ciera texted.

“She did call the police multiple times. The police were called to her residence both in Georgia and Indiana multiple times,” Shelby said. “By the time the police would get there she would have calmed down enough to where she was lying for him.”

“She had told me that she couldn’t leave Xavier because she couldn’t imagine letting Jackson go with Xavier.”

Cierra’s parents said that their daughter was not enjoying living in Indiana and had said that she wanted to move back to Georgia. “She said, ‘Mom, I’m coming,’” Kelly said. “’You know, we’re gonna say we’re gonna visit with you guys and his mom. But I’m never going back to Indiana.’”

“I encouraged her and her father encouraged her to come home. We just wanted her to be out of the situation, but Ciera was 31 years old. I trusted her to know what to do,” her mother explained.

In February 2022, Xavier and Ciera packed up their 2017 VW Tiguan, with their Goldendoodle Baker and their baby and they started the drive from Indiana to Georgia – around an 8.5 hour drive.

They arrived at Ciera’s parents home on February 19, 2022. “She came Saturday night and stayed till Sunday,” Nick told Dateline. The next stop would be about an hour away at Xavier’s mother’s house in Johns Creek, Georgia. Nick said Ciera texted him on Monday, February 21. “She sent me a message at 11:17 at night saying, ‘I’ll be back in the morning if that’s OK,’” Nick said. “And I said, ‘Of course it’s OK, you don’t have to ask.’”

After the family left Ciera’s parents’ home, they traveled to see Xavier’s mother in Johns Creek – just over an hour’s drive away.

Ciera was last seen alive on CCTV standing in the doorway of Xavier’s mother’s home at 7.17pm on Wednesday, February 23, 2022.

Nick texted Ciera and she said that she was okay but that she had been feeling a little sick.

Nick said he reached out again later on Wednesday asking Ciera how she was feeling. He didn’t get a response.

He said he texted again on Thursday, February 24. Again, no response.

By Friday, February 25, 2022, Ciera’s parents were becoming concerned. They said it was out of character for her not to respond to their communications.

On Saturday, February 26, 2022, Nick got a call from an unknown Indiana number. “I didn’t automatically panic, because I thought they were still in Georgia,” Nick told Dateline. “So I answered it and they said it was the police. And that’s when they told me she was missing.”

Xavier had reported Ciera missing from Indiana. He said that they had returned there after they visited his mother.

According to ‘Disappeared’, CCTV only showed Xavier heading back to Indiana. He was seen getting gas, going into the store and leaving. Ciera, Jackson or their dog were not seen at any time.

Xavier told police that he and Ciera had argued about her running out of Adderall. She apparently asked for some of his. He said that he refused and that angered Ciera. He said that she left in anger at about 11pm. He said she may have been headed to a local CVS and was wearing a black top and purple shorts. She left without her cell phones (she had three – a personal phone, work phone and a burner phone) and her ID and credit cards. The burner phone was a safety net for Ciera in case she ever needed to contact someone for help.

“No one believes Xavier’s story that she walked off without her phone, her keys, her baby or her dog,” Shelby said. “It was 20 degrees out. It is beyond believability.”

Nick called Xavier to find out what was happening. He said he got nowhere, so he called Xavier’s father, who lived next door to the couple. “He said, ‘No. I never saw her,’” Nick said was the father’s response.

Police began to investigate and determined that the last time that Ciera was confirmed to be alive was on February 24, at her mother-in-law’s home at 7.17pm.

“The biggest thing is: she’s a 31-year-old woman with a 5-month-old baby. It’s not normal for her, according to her family.” Lt. Kalish told Dateline. “They talked to her all the time and/or daily and they’re extremely concerned, as are we. We’re taking it very seriously.”

Kelly told Dateline that Ciera would never have abandoned her son. “There is no one since the baby has been born – no one has ever kept that baby for her, like, not even for an hour,” Kelly said. “She was the sole mother, caregiver, everything to that child.” It’s unfathomable to the family that Ciera would just walk away. “For them to say, she just said, ‘Hey, to heck with it – walking out the door without my child, my car, my phone, my money, nothing and I’m just gonna hit the road,’ is absurd.”

Officers in both Indiana and Georgia searched areas where Ciera was known to have been with dogs.

They also subpoenaed her phone records which didn’t reveal much information. They dredged rivers and searched by air, to no avail.

They also had the dogs sniff the car that Xavier said the family traveled back to Indiana in, but they came up empty as well.

“Those dogs which are very good weren’t picking up any scent – nothing,” Nick said. “If she rode up there 10 hours in that car, the dogs would have known it.”

Xavier would be filmed on a video chat with his other children, saying that Ciera had been kidnapped. This obviously conflicted with his initial statement of her walking away from their home.

On February 28, 2022, Xavier was involved in an incident at their home with a firearm.

Court documents indicate there was “an accidental discharge of a firearm” at a home on Baldwin Lane.

Xavier told investigators he was moving a Christmas tree in the garage when he heard a gunshot and then ran outside. He would then return to the garage, locate the gun, and unload it. Investigators said a SIG Sauer P365 and another gun were found at the scene.

On March 2, 2022, Carmel Police Department and the City of Johns Creek Police Department announced that Xavier was a person of interest in the case.

“Through the combined efforts of both agencies, the missing person’s husband, 37-year-old Xavier Breland Jr., has been identified as a person of interest in this case.” It noted that Xavier Breland “has not been criminally charged in relation to this case, but has been arrested on an unrelated warrant” out of Georgia.

It is believed the unrelated warrant related to Xavier’s alleged stalking of his ex-wife.

This info about the warrant is from Fox 5 Atlanta:

Court records indicate he was accused of putting a tracker inside a stuffed animal belonging to his daughter with the intention of tracking the girl’s mother, his ex-wife. The case stemmed from a custody battle between the former couple.

By March 4, 2022, the FBI and the GBI were both assisting in Ciera’s case.

The Locklairs told Dateline that on Friday, March 11, some of their family and friends went out searching in Johns Creek. “They went out and passed out flyers and looked around,” Nick said. “I think there were seven or eight officers with — walked with them,” Kelly added. “And, I mean, it was a big turnout and people were really receptive to them.” Nick also told Dateline that from that search, he believes authorities got several new leads.

Xavier’s attorney Bryan Howard spoke to WSB TV about his client’s innocence. “He’s cooperated with police,” he said. “He’s made statements to the police and tried to help them in any way possible.”

Xavier ended up being acquitted of the charges relating to stalking on August 16, 2022. He was released from prison, but was arrested on a new warrant the following day.

Xavier went to trial in 2024 for the unlawful possession of a firearm charge.

In June of 2024, Xavier was charged with intimidation. According to court documents, during the trial, Xavier reportedly said to an advocate for Ciera’s family, “You better hope you see me before I see you.”

“As I was exiting the courtroom, he made direct eye contact with me, and then he turned back to face the courtroom and as I walked behind him to exit, he said, ‘You better hope you see me before I see you.’ And so, I’m really not there for his antics, and I fully expected something like that from him,” advocate Blaire Duncan said.

Blaire also said that Xavier noticed the lockscreen photo on her phone, a photo of a child, and said, “Cute kid” — not as a compliment.

“No, it was in a threatening way, for sure. Absolutely,” Blaire said.

Court records say courthouse security cameras captured the interaction.

“I’m not afraid of Xavier Breland,” Blaire said. “I obviously wouldn’t be here doing what I’m doing if I was. I’m really over the audacity that it takes for him to think that he can speak to anyone any way that he wants and to think that he’s above the law. And I’m really glad to see some justice and really happy to be a part of that justice.”

In July of 2024, Xavier was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the charge of possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon. This only applies to his first set of charges, and further sentencing may be announced at a later time. He is apparently planning to appeal the sentence.

Authorities were asked for an update on Ciera’s case in March 2025 – three years after she went missing.

Lt. Eric Rozier, of the Johns Creek Police Department in Georgia, said he does not have any new updates or active investigative leads to share with the public.

“It’s important to keep this story alive because information from the public is often a way for cold cases to break,” Lt Rozier said in an email to IndyStar.

“It’s important not to forget Ciera Breland’s tragic disappearance,” Rozier said via email. “I have faith that the truth will come to light at some point. That will be a great day, and we want nothing more than to bring justice to Ciera and provide closure for her family.”

Lt Rozier confirmed that Xavier is still a person of interest in the case.

Ciera’s aunt Jeannie Bush said “Losing someone, not knowing how or why it is the absolute worst feeling. I can’t describe it, none of us can move forward (and) there’s just this constant pain and heaviness of not knowing.”

“Lots of things go through your mind when your child is missing and you have thoughts that a specific person is responsible,” Kelly said. “We should have seen the signs.”

The FBI have announced that there is a $10,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Ciera. She was 5 feet tall and 120 pounds with blonde hair when she went missing.