Erik Charles Maund, a former partner at Maund Automotive Group in Austin, Texas, faces life in prison after a jury this month found him guilty of murder for hire with death resulting after two people were killed including a woman he had an affair with, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Maund paid nearly $1 million for the murders of Nashville residents Holly Williams, 33, and her estranged boyfriend, William Lanway, 36, authorities said. The two were killed on March 12, 2020, and their bodies discovered a day later.
Maund, 48, and three co-conspirators were arrested and indicted in December 2021 for the murder-for-hire scheme. A superseding indictment in July 2022 also charged the four men with conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping with death resulting.
District Judge William Campbell Jr. dismissed the conspiracy-to-commit-kidnapping charge against Maund at trial, finding there was insufficient evidence to support it, according to Mark Wildasin, executive assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. The jury acquitted Maund of the kidnapping-with-death-resulting charge, Wildasin told Automotive News by email.
Inquiries seeking comment from Maund’s lawyers were not returned.
The Austin American-Statesman said Maund’s late grandfather, Charles Maund, started Maund Automotive in 1957.
All of the group’s dealerships appear to have been sold. Doug Maund, a son of Charles Maund, sold Charles Maund Volkswagen in Austin on Sept. 15, 2022, to Vanguard Automotive Group. On March 7, 2022, Group 1 Automotive Inc. purchased the high-volume Charles Maund Toyota, renamed Toyota of North Austin, from Doug Maund and Jim DiMeo.
Doug Maund could not be reached for comment. DiMeo did not return requests for comment.
Bryon Brockway, 48, of Austin, along with Adam Carey, 32, of Richlands, N.C., face life in federal prison after the jury found both guilty of all three charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. A fourth co-conspirator, Gilad Peled, 49, of Austin, pleaded guilty to the same three charges and cooperated with authorities, Wildasin said.
Maund had had an affair with Williams and emailed her ahead of a February 2020 Nashville visit, inviting her to meet, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Lanway then began blackmailing Maund via text messages on March 1, 2020, threatening to reveal the affair, according to a July 2022 press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Maund enlisted Peled, the indictments stated, to surveil Williams and Lanway. Peled then hired Brockway and Carey. Wildasin confirmed that Maund paid about $955,000 to Peled over the course of a year, starting March 5, 2020, as payment to the three men for the kidnapping and killing of Williams and Lanway. Metro Nashville Police were joined by the U.S. Attorney’s office and several branches of the FBI on the case.
Brock and Carey are former U.S. Marines who served in special forces units. Peled is a former member of the Israel Defense Forces. Initial reports from the U.S. Attorney’s office and media said Brockway and Carey killed Lanway at Williams’ apartment.
The U.S. Attorney’s office said Brockway and Carey then kidnapped Williams, taking her and Lanway’s body to a construction site in Nashville, though Wildasin said the medical examiner testified Lanway’s time of death couldn’t be confirmed.
Williams was shot and killed at the construction site, police said. The men then placed both bodies in what appeared to be a white Acura TL, according to an Austin American-Statesman photograph, and shoved the car off a gravel construction road, Wildasin said.
Maund, Peled, Brockway and Carey will remain in the custody of U.S. Marshals until they’re sentenced separately, sometime in the spring or summer of 2024.