The husband of a Texas mother who went missing in early December may be a suspect in her disappearance. Police suspended Friday the search for Anne-Christine Johnson, a 30-year-old mother of two boys who disappeared Dec. 8, but her husband may still be under investigation.

Johnson, a waitress from League City, was last seen by her husband, Shaun Hardy. The search could resume Wednesday if police find new evidence in the case that would allow volunteers to refocus their efforts. Volunteers were considering using a boat to search a nearby canal for a body.

"We're hoping that some information comes in tomorrow that gives us some direction," Tim Miller, director of the Texas EquuSearch, told local reporters Tuesday.

Johnson's mother, Stephanie, said, "I'm just clinging to a shred of hope." Her daughter had two sons, including a 5-year-old autistic boy. "I’m crying and not sleeping or eating and I’m relying on the strength of friends to keep me going," the boy's grandmother said.

Johnson's disappearance comes a month after a young mother in California disappeared for three weeks before she was found bound and gagged on an interstate. Sherri Papini has not been able to describe her captors and some initially blamed her husband when she went missing.

Volunteers had searched for Johnson for two weeks in an area of about 8 square miles with no results. Her father had reported her missing after she didn't show up for work.

Hardy is considered a person of interest because the couple had a history of violence. Hardy told police his wife left their home in a car with a man he did not know. His attorney was not immediately available for comment.

"Mr. Hardy is a person of interest for several reasons, one being the documented volatile relationship with Ms. Johnson," officer Kelly Williamson told local reporters. "He was the last one to see her. The totality of the circumstances would lead us to keep him a person of interest."

Court documents show Johnson accused Hardy of choking, pistol-whipping and trying to drug her in June 2015. "Shaun Philip Hardy's violent behavior against me has gotten so bad that he has assaulted me with a shotgun, threatened me with a knife, and choked me," Johnson alleged in the request for a protective order. "I am afraid that without this protective order, Shaun Philip Hardy will continue to hurt me or even kill me in the future."

Hardy also filed for a protective order that claimed Johnson had "engaged in conduct that constitutes family violence."

"You have a contentious couple in a volatile relationship, sharing custody of a child, and he was the last person to report seeing her,” Williamson told the Huffington Post Tuesday.

Hardy recently stopped cooperating with police, Williamson said.

“We interviewed him once by phone and once in person, but after that he employed an attorney,” Williamson told HuffPost. “We requested a second face-to-face meeting with him, which went through his attorney, but that was denied.”

Johnson is about 5’2 and 110 pounds.

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