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.
