The story of Holly Williams and William Lanway begins, tragically, with ordinary lives. Williams, 33, lived in Nashville. Lanway, 36, was her estranged boyfriend. After dating on and off for a while, their relationship turned volatile in 2020. What neither of them could have known was that their private struggles would be swept into a plot orchestrated hundreds of miles away — one that would end both their lives and shake communities from Nashville to Austin.

A Dirty Job

Federal prosecutors say Erik Charles Maund, a wealthy Texas auto dealer and heir to his family’s dealership empire, hired a team of so-called security experts to make his problems disappear. In reality, prosecutors argued, Maund’s “problems” were nothing more than an affair he wanted kept hidden and a man — Lanway — who had threatened to expose it. The price of that secrecy was staggering: more than $750,000 wired over months, much of it ending up in the pockets of two former Marines and a security consultant who claimed ties to Israel’s military.

An Affair to Remember

According to testimony, Maund had rekindled a relationship with Williams, visiting her while on trips to Nashville. But when Lanway discovered the affair, he began sending messages demanding payment in exchange for silence. For Maund, a married father with a prominent name in Austin, exposure wasn’t an option. Rather than face scandal, he turned to Gilad Peled, an Austin businessman who marketed himself as an expert in “extortion response.”

The Tennessee Sitrep

Peled brought in Bryon Brockway and Adam Carey, both ex-special operations Marines, to surveil Williams and Lanway. They tracked the couple, compiled detailed intelligence reports, and prepared what prosecutors called a “Tennessee sitrep” — a battlefield-style assessment of two unsuspecting civilians. On March 12, 2020, they carried out their plan. In the parking lot of Williams’s apartment complex, Brockway and Carey confronted the pair. Lanway was shot multiple times. Williams was kidnapped, driven to a construction site on the outskirts of Nashville, and killed. Their bodies were discovered in a crashed vehicle off a construction road on Good Friday, a detail that Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake later called “haunting.”

Covering Their Tracks

Within hours, the killers were already covering their tracks. Rental cars were returned, burner accounts were deleted, and cash moved quietly through bank accounts. Meanwhile, Maund wired Peled $150,000 that same day, followed by nearly $1 million more over the next year. The transfers, prosecutors said, were the financial backbone of a murder-for-hire scheme designed to erase a personal embarrassment at an unfathomable human cost.

It Took a Year To Track Down The Killers

The arrests came more than a year later, the result of a joint investigation by the FBI, Metro Nashville Police, and federal prosecutors. At trial, Peled testified for the government after taking a plea deal. Maund, Brockway, and Carey were all convicted of murder-for-hire with death resulting, as well as kidnapping and conspiracy. Each faces a mandatory life sentence when sentenced next year.

Saving Face At The Expense Of Human Lives

For the families of Williams and Lanway, the verdicts close only part of the story. The brutality of the crime — a young couple kidnapped and murdered to protect an image — lingers as a reminder of how quickly private lives can become casualties of power and money. “This investigation began with the discovery of two murder victims inside a vehicle off a construction road in West Nashville,” Chief Drake said. “It was that partnership, and persistence, that brought justice in federal court.”