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The chilling case of a Murder-for-Hire plot that left two young people dead in Nashville is being revisited on ABC’s 20/20. The episode, airing Friday, Feb. 9, at 9 p.m. ET and streaming on Hulu, explores the 2020 murders of Holly Williams and Bill Lanway. It was a shocking Murder-for-Hire that unmasked a nationwide conspiracy involving crime, money, secrecy, and power.

A Discovery That Sparked a Three-Year Investigation

On March 13, 2020, Nashville police received a 911 call from a construction worker who saw a white Acura crashed into a tree. Inside, they found the bodies of Holly Williams, 33, and Bill Lanway, 36. Both had been shot multiple times.

“This was like a scene out of a movie,” recalled Metro Nashville PD Detective Patrick Cuthbertson, one of the investigators on the case (ABC News).

The three-year investigation uncovered layers of deceit that reached far beyond Tennessee, eventually exposing a murder-for-hire conspiracy orchestrated by a wealthy Texas businessman.

Erik Charles Maund: The Mastermind Behind the Plot

According to federal prosecutors, the killings were ordered by Erik Charles Maund, a wealthy Texas auto dealer and heir to a family car dealership empire. Maund allegedly rekindled an affair with Williams while visiting Nashville. When her estranged boyfriend, Lanway, learned of the affair, he threatened to expose it.

Rather than risk public embarrassment, prosecutors say Maund paid more than $750,000 to silence the threat. His “solution” was hiring Gilad Peled, an Austin businessman who marketed himself as an expert in “extortion response.”

From Surveillance to Execution

Peled brought in two ex-Marines, Bryon Brockway and Adam Carey, to track Williams and Lanway. They compiled battlefield-style reports on the couple’s movements and ultimately staged a deadly confrontation.

• On March 12, 2020, Lanway was shot multiple times outside Williams’s apartment complex.
• Williams was kidnapped, driven to a construction site, and killed.
• The couple’s bodies were later discovered in the crashed Acura on the outskirts of Nashville.

Metro Police Chief John Drake later described the discovery as “haunting” (ABC News).

Financial Trail of a Murder-for-Hire Scheme

The day of the murders, Maund wired Peled $150,000, with nearly $1 million more transferred over the following year. Prosecutors argued these payments were the financial backbone of the murder-for-hire operation designed to protect Maund’s reputation at the cost of two lives.

Arrests, Trial, and Convictions

After a joint investigation by the FBI, Metro Nashville Police, and federal prosecutors, Maund, Peled, Brockway, and Carey were indicted.

• Peled accepted a plea deal and testified for the prosecution.
• Maund, Brockway, and Carey were convicted of murder-for-hire with death resulting, kidnapping, and conspiracy.
• Each faces a mandatory life sentence.

“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.”

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A Tragic Ending with Lessons

For the families of Williams and Lanway, justice offers some closure but not healing. Their story, now told on 20/20, highlights how ordinary lives can be destroyed when power, secrecy, and money collide.

As one federal prosecutor noted, this case is a grim reminder of “how far some will go to protect an image — even at the cost of human life.”

Related Links

• Nashville couple's murder uncovers dark conspiracy, payoffs across the country - ABC News
• Holly Williams And William Lanway: How Did They Die? Who Killed Them?
• USA v. Maund, et al (Original Indictment) | DocumentCloud