A once high-flying Texas car dealer and two other men have been convicted in a murder-for-hire scheme hatched because his mistress’s estranged boyfriend tried to extort him over the affair, authorities said.
A federal jury found Eric Maund, 48, of Austin, a former partner in the lucrative Maund Automotive Group that his grandfather founded, guilty of murder-for-hire with death resulting after a two-week trial, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said Monday in a statement.
The conspiracy
Bryon Brockway, 48, of Austin, and Adam Carey, 32, of Richlands, North Carolina were convicted of murder-for-hire as well as conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping with death resulting.
A fourth man, Gilad Peled, 49, of Austin, previously pleaded guilty to the same charges and agreed to cooperate with the United States by testifying at trial.
The four were convicted in the fatal 2020 shooting of Holly Williams, 33, and her estranged boyfriend, William Lanway, 36, in Nashville, after Lanway allegedly tried to extort Maund over his affair with Williams.
What prosecutors find out
According to federal prosecutors, Maund, who was married at the time, had previously had an affair with Williams, who lived in Nashville, where he sometimes traveled to Nashville to visit a relative.
On Feb. 3, 2020, using an alias, he emailed Williams and said he would be in Nashville on Wednesday and Thursday night and ‘would love to see you…again,’ according to the federal indictment.
Two days later, Maund texted Williams, saying, ‘Good morning beautiful! Looking forward to later today. I’m in Nashville. I will meet you in the bar like last time. Text when you arrive.’
But on March 1, 2020, when Maund received a series of text messages from Lanway, ‘who had a personal romantic relationship’ with Williams.
The threats
Lanway demanded money from Maund and threatened to expose his relationship with Williams if he did not receive it.
Maund then hired Peled to respond to the extortion attempt, the U.S. Attorney said in a statement. Peled, in turn, hired Brockway and Carey to go to Nashville to investigate Lanway and Williams.
Peled testified at trial that when Lanway’s efforts to extort Maund persisted, Maund agreed to pay Brockway and Carey $100,000 each to murder Lanway and Williams, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in the statement.
‘The evidence showed that Maund wired Peled, who acted as the middleman for the scheme, $150,000 on March 12, 2020, the day the murders occurred,’ the statement said.
‘On the same day, Brockway and Carey kidnapped Williams and Lanway from outside of Williams’ apartment complex in West Nashville and drove them to a nearby construction site where they were murdered,’ it says.
Where are the dead bodies are found?
Their bodies were found the next morning inside Williams’ vehicle.
Over the course of the next year, Maund wired Peled an additional $900,000 as payment for the scheme and Peled withdrew cash to pay Brockway and Carey for their roles, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in the statement.
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‘Those who devalue life need to know that when you break the law, you will be brought to justice,’ Special Agent in Charge Douglas DePodesta of the FBI Memphis Field Office said in the statement.
‘This conviction should send a clear message that the FBI and our law enforcement partners are dedicated to keeping our citizens safe, and nothing will stop us from accomplishing that mission.’
Maund, Brockway, and Carey face mandatory life sentences in federal prison.
They will be sentenced in separate hearings sometime in 2024.
Peled will also be sentenced in 2024 where U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell, Jr. will take his cooperation into consideration as part of his ultimate sentence.
