Naman Shrestha
In 2020, the lifeless bodies of Holly Williams and William “Bill” Lanway were found at a construction site in Nashville, Tennessee, which resulted in the community going into a state of distress and concern. The episode titled ‘Sealed with a Kill’ of ’20/20′ covers the harrowing case by delving deep into the intricate details surrounding the death of the two individuals and the extensive investigation that followed. Moreover, it includes interviews with the loved ones of the victims as well as the officials tied to the case, revealing the ways in which the perpetrator/s was/were identified and brought to justice.
Holly Williams and William Lanway Were Found Dead in the Former’s Car
On March 17, 1983, William “Bill” Lanway lit up the world of Candy Kay Lanway (nee Snyder), who brought him into the world in Clarksville in Montgomery County, Tennessee. Though he spent the early years of his life surrounded by the love of his mother and other family members, fate had other plans, as Candy lost her life at the age of 26 in November 1986. According to reports, it was William’s own father who was responsible for the demise of his mother. It has been reported that just a week prior to stabbing Candy to death, his father had purportedly threatened to harm a young William by holding him at gunpoint. Just days later, the young boy’s life changed forever.
Losing his mother at such a young age had a significant impact on the life of William, who was not even 4 years old at the time. However, William was raised under the care of his loved ones and grew up to become a responsible man. In his early 20s, he went on to marry Dana Rucker, and together, they became proud parents of a beautiful daughter, Madison Kay Lanway, on January 30, 2006. Maddie’s baby steps filled their lives with love and laughter, but it was short-lived. The happy lives of the Lanways were marred by a tragedy on September 21, 2011, when they lost their merely 5-year-old bundle of joy to brain cancer.
The loss of his daughter devastated him and he went into a shell. His friends and co-workers described him as a person who was generally quite shy but very fun at pubs and parties. William’s easygoing personality led him to meet Holly Ann Williams. Born on January 14, 1987, Holly was a free-spirited from Nashville, Tennessee. The 33-year-old was an aesthetician by profession, having graduated from Georgia Career Institute in Murfreesboro in mid-2017. Holly went on to receive her official Aesthetician license in September of the same year. She ran her own business by the name Sparkle Esthetics and specialized in Lash Extensions, Makeup, and Skincare.
Around the time of their deaths, Holly and William had been in an on-again-off-again relationship for years. Little did Holly and William know that March 12, 2020, would be the last day on Earth for them as the couple was found with fatal gunshot wounds, lifeless in Holly’s car that had crashed into a tree at a construction site in Nashville. As soon as the authorities arrived at the scene of the crime, they taped the area and began collecting evidence before launching an investigation to search for the one/s responsible for the couple’s death.
Three Killers Were Hired to Kill Holly Williams And William Lanway
After inspecting the crime scene and collecting all the pieces of evidence they could find, the investigators interrogated the family members and friends of Holly Williams and William Lanway in the hopes of finding some suspects that had the motive to commit the double homicide. Resultantly, they found out about one Erik Charles Maund, an auto dealer from Austin, Texas, who was involved in an extramarital affair with Holly. Erik used to visit Nashville to see one of his relatives, and those were the times he allegedly got in touch with the aesthetician.
The same was the case in 2020 when Erik, under the guise of an alias, contacted Holly via email on February 3, 2020, informing her that he would be traveling to Nashville and hoped to see her again. A couple of days later, Erik sent Holly another email, which reportedly read, “Good morning beautiful! Looking forward to later today. I’m in Nashville. I will meet you in the bar like last time. Text when you arrive.” Once his trip to Nashville ended, on March 1, 202o, he received a bunch of threatening messages from William Lanway, Holly’s romantic partner at the time. William blackmailed Erik in order to get a large amount of money as he threatened to expose his affair with Holly to his family.
The auto dealer then turned to Gilad Peled, Bryon Brockway, and Adam Carey and asked for their assistance in dealing with the threats and extortion demands. Soon, the three men traveled to Nashville themselves to keep a close watch on Holly and William while creating a Pinger account to communicate with them. On March 9, 2020, the document titled ‘Tennessee Sitrep’ stated that Adam and others had done a good job surveilling Holly and also confirmed her address alongside that of William’s. It also instructed the three men to resort to any means to get William to stop extorting Erik.
Then, on the fateful day of March 12, 2020, Bryon Brockway and Adam Carey reportedly confronted Holly and William with guns in the parking lot of the former’s apartment complex in Nashville. While the two armed men shot William to death on the spot, Holly was abducted along with the lifeless body of William and driven to a construction site on Old Hickory Boulevard. Upon reaching the site, they shot her multiple times and killed her as well. Bryon and Adam then left the bodies inside the car at the construction site. In the next few hours, they worked on eliminating all the links to the murder, including deleting the Pinger account and returning the rental car that Bryon had rented for the mission.
Once the deed was done, Gilad, Bryon, and Adam went their separate ways. As a payment to all three men carrying out the kidnapping and killings of Holly and William, Erik allegedly transferred more than $750,000 to Gilad Peled’s account. In December 2020, after nine long months, the authorities arrested all four suspects in different states and charged them with the kidnapping and murder of Holly Williams and William Lanway. Various months after their arrest, in late July 2022, prosecutors also charged them all with murder-for-hire.
During the two-and-a-half-week-long trial in November 2023, Erik Maund, Bryon Brockway, and Adam Carey were found guilty of murder-for-hire, resulting in death. At the same time, the jury also convicted Bryon and Adam of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping that resulted in death. On the other hand, Gilad Peled ended up pleading guilty to the same charges and made an agreement with the authorities to testify at the trial against his fellow suspects. As the criminals were convicted of their crimes, they currently face mandatory life sentences for the same.
Read More: Erik Maund: Where is the Killer Now?
