Married grandson of a Texas automotive tycoon has been indicted for allegedly paying three men $750,000 (at least N306 million) to kidnap and murder his mistress and her current boyfriend who threatened to expose his secret affair.
Alleged mistress Holly Williams, 33, and her partner William Lanway, 36, were found dead in Lanway’s crashed Acura sedan on March 12 of last year.
The car had veered off a construction road, down an embankment and into a tree, and its occupants were both fatally shot several times.
Williams’ married ex Erik Charles Maund, 46, was arrested on Friday during a traffic stop near Austin and charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death, and carrying, brandishing and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Monday, DailyMail reports.
However, it’s not clear if Maund and Williams were dating at the time of her murder.
Austin residents, Gilad Peled, 47, Byron Brockway, 46, and North Carolina resident Adam Carey, 30 – three former members of the military who worked with private security companies – were also arrested that day and indicted on the same charges.
Maund is a partner of Maund Automotive Group in Austin and the grandson of its founder, Charles Maund.
Allegedly, he paid Peled, Brockway and Carey more than $750,000 to travel from Austin to Tennessee to kidnap, threaten and intimidate the couple.
Peled owns Austin-based Speartip Security, a business that helped clients respond to extortion demands, according to the Department of Justice indictment.
On Tuesday, December 7, a chilling review for the security company was written under the name Erik Maund which reads;
Speartip is very professional and on top of it. They get the job done in an expedited time. Couldn’t imagine using anyone else!!
‘Thank you for the kind words,’ replied Peled, or the person managing the company’s Google page. ‘Always a pleasure working with you.’
The sequence of events that led up to the killing began in February of 2020, according to the indictment, when Maund reached out to his former girlfriend about seeing each other when he visited Nashville to see a relative, according to KVUE.
It is unclear when Maund and Williams dated, or whether Maund was married to his wife, Sheri, at the time.
However, in March, Lanway reached out to Maund claiming to be Williams’ boyfriend, and threatened to expose Maund’s relationship if the automotive heir didn’t pay him hush money.
As a result, Maund hired the three men. Carey and Brockway surveilled the couple to learn where they lived and what car they drove on March 9.
After Peled received a document from the two other hired hands detailing their findings, Maund withdrew $15,000 from his bank account to pay for this ‘intelligence report,’ the indictment claims.
Holly Williams (left) and William Lanway (right) are pictured together.On March 11, Brockway and Carey allegedly confronted Williams and Lanway in the parking lot of their apartment complex in West Nashville with firearms.
They shot Lanway in the parking lot multiple times. They put his body in his own car, then used that car to kidnap Williams and drive her to nearby Old Hickory Boulevard, where they shot her several times.
Within hours of the murders, the Department of Justice wrote, Brockway returned a rental car that the two men had used to get to the couple.
Then, Carey drove Brockway to Memphis, Tennessee, where he caught a flight to Austin, and Carey drove there from Memphis.
After which, Maund wired $750,000 from his bank account to an account controlled by Peled.
