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.”
