A high-profile car dealer from Texas was indicted last week for allegedly hiring assassins to murder his ex-lover and her current partner in Tennessee.
On July 28, a federal grand jury passed down a superseding indictment of Austin businessman Erik Charles Maund and three of his associates concerning the murder of two people in March 2020.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee, where the alleged crimes occurred, issued a press release explaining that the grand jury charged “Erik Charles Maund, 47, Gilad Peled, 48, and Bryon Brockway, 47, all of Austin, Texas, and Adam Carey, 31, of Richlands, North Carolina, with murder for hire, conspiracy to kidnap resulting in death, and kidnapping resulting in death.”
Maund was a partner in the popular Maund Automotive group in Austin. He allegedly hired Peled, Brockway, and Carey to kill his former mistress, Holly Williams, 33, and her new boyfriend, William Lanway, 36. Allegedly, Williams and Lanway had attempted to blackmail Maund to extort money from him to keep his affair with Williams a secret.
To silence them, Maund allegedly solicited the services of Peled, a retired member of the Israeli Defense Forces, and Brockway and Carey — two retired U.S. Marines. Peled had run a private security company named Speartip Security which offered anti-extortion services.
According to the most recent indictment, the four men allegedly acted “with the intent that the murders of W.L. and H.W. be committed, in violation of the laws of any state or the United States, and as consideration for the receipt of and for a promise and agreement to pay anything of pecuniary value.”
Brockway and Carey are accused of attacking the couple in March 2020 at Williams’ apartment in Nashville, shooting Lanway several times and killing him immediately. The two then allegedly kidnapped Williams and drove her and the corpse of Lanway to a construction site before executing Williams and dumping both bodies.
Maund allegedly paid the guns-for-hire over $750,000 for the crime before they were all arrested in December 2021. If convicted, the defendants could potentially serve life in prison.
