Gilad Peled: Murder-for-Hire Charges, Plea, and Cooperation

Gilad Peled is an Austin-based security contractor who pleaded guilty in December 2022 to federal murder-for-hire charges for arranging the March 2020 kidnapping and killing of a Nashville couple, Holly Williams and William Lanway. He acted as the middleman between Erik Charles Maund, a Texas car dealership executive being blackmailed over an affair, and the former military operatives who carried out the murders. After his plea, Peled became the government’s key cooperating witness and testified against his co-defendants at their 2023 trial.

Who Gilad Peled Is

Peled ran Speartip Security Group, an Austin firm licensed by the Texas Department of Public Safety as a guard and private investigation company.¹ The company advertised that it helped clients respond to extortion demands, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.² He started an earlier version of the business, Speartip Enterprises, in California around 2005 and moved to the Austin area around 2015 or 2016, settling near Lake Travis.³

Peled claimed to be a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces, and federal investigators said he also claimed to have served with Mossad. He said he had worked as a bodyguard in Hollywood, including a stint protecting Charlie Sheen before being fired in 2014.³ One report identified him as a former CIA contractor with the agency’s Global Response Staff, the same paramilitary protective unit where co-defendant Bryon Brockway reportedly worked.⁴ At trial, prosecutors characterized him as a serial fabricator who invented stories about his background, and defense lawyers pressed the point hard.⁵

His Role in the Murder-for-Hire Scheme

The scheme grew out of a blackmail demand. In early 2020, Erik Maund, an executive at Austin’s Maund Automotive Group, had an extramarital encounter with Holly Williams during a trip to Nashville. Williams’ estranged boyfriend, William Lanway, then contacted Maund and demanded $25,000, threatening to expose the affair.⁶

Peled already worked as a security contractor for Maund’s dealership. Instead of going to police, Maund brought the problem to him. Peled assembled a team of military veterans and security professionals to conduct surveillance on Williams and Lanway in Nashville. Among those he recruited were Bryon Brockway, a former Marine who had served in Force Recon and worked as a CIA contractor, and Adam Carey, also a former Marine.⁷ Peled also brought in Anthony Repinski and David Conaway for surveillance, though both left before the killings and were never charged.⁸

According to Peled’s later trial testimony, he initially enlisted Brockway’s brother, Chad Brockway, to help identify the extortionist, telling him a fabricated story about a missing daughter who was being sex-trafficked. When the blackmail continued, the plan escalated. On March 11, 2020, Bryon Brockway told Peled that he and Carey could murder the couple for $60,000 each. Investigators said Maund approved.⁷

On March 12, 2020, Brockway and Carey ambushed Williams, 33, and Lanway, 36, in the parking lot of Williams’ Nashville apartment. Their bodies were found the next day inside a white Acura that had struck a tree off a construction road in West Nashville. Both had been shot multiple times.⁷

The money moved through Peled. On the day of the murders, Maund wired him $150,000. Over the following year, Maund sent an additional $750,000 to $900,000, which Peled used in part to pay Brockway and Carey.⁹ After the payments arrived, Peled bought a luxury boat for nearly $69,000, which he later resold.³

How Investigators Caught Him

Nashville Metro police worked the case first, identifying suspicious figures on apartment security cameras and tracing a Voice over IP phone number found in both victims’ records to Adam Carey. The FBI joined in June 2020 because of the case’s multi-state reach.⁷

The break came through a confidential source the FBI nicknamed “Red,” a former Army Ranger whom Brockway had hired for the Nashville surveillance. When Red later applied for a federal job requiring a security clearance, an FBI agent interviewed him. He agreed to cooperate and, wearing recording equipment, contacted Carey and Brockway under the pretext of hiring them for a job “similar to Nashville.” Brockway eventually described the murders in detail during a recorded meeting at an Austin brewery, confirming that he shot Lanway and that Carey killed Williams.¹⁰

On December 10, 2021, the FBI arrested the conspirators in a coordinated operation. Peled was detained at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Brockway was arrested in San Diego, and Carey was arrested in North Carolina, where agents seized nearly $60,000 in bundled cash from his home.⁶ A federal indictment filed on November 29, 2021, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee was unsealed on December 13, 2021.¹¹

The Charges and His Guilty Plea

The case, United States v. Maund (No. 3:21-cr-00288), was assigned to U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr.¹¹ A superseding indictment filed in July 2022 charged all four defendants with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire under 18 U.S.C. § 1958, conspiracy to commit kidnapping under 18 U.S.C. § 1201, and kidnapping resulting in death.¹²

Peled initially pleaded not guilty and was ordered detained. On December 14, 2022, he changed his plea to guilty under a plea agreement with the government. He admitted to three counts: murder-for-hire, conspiracy to kidnap with death resulting, and kidnapping resulting in death.¹³ Under the federal murder-for-hire statute, those charges carry penalties up to and including life imprisonment.¹⁴

His Cooperation and Testimony at Trial

With Peled cooperating, the other three defendants went to trial in November 2023 in a 14-day proceeding. Peled served as a key government witness, testifying that Maund hired him to “deal with the blackmail problem” and that he then recruited Brockway and Carey to carry out the killings.⁸

His testimony carried complications. Days before trial, the government disclosed that Peled had recalled a previously unmentioned July 2020 lunch meeting near Lake Travis with Brockway and Carey, at which he asked whether they had heard anything about the investigation. Peled said Carey responded that no one cared about the victims. The court allowed defense lawyers to cross-examine Peled about the timing of that recollection but initially barred the jury from hearing Carey’s specific statement.¹⁵

Defense attorneys attacked Peled’s credibility, presenting evidence that he had fabricated stories about his background, including his claims of Israeli special forces service and his connection to Charlie Sheen. Peled admitted on the stand to lying about various conversations with Maund.⁵ Other cooperating witnesses, including David Conaway and Anthony Repinski, corroborated elements of his account.⁸

On November 17, 2023, the jury convicted all three co-defendants. Maund was found guilty of murder-for-hire with death resulting; Brockway and Carey were convicted of murder-for-hire with death resulting, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and kidnapping with death resulting.⁹

Where His Sentencing Stands

Peled faces up to life in prison on the three counts he pleaded guilty to. The judge is expected to weigh his cooperation when determining his sentence.⁹ The specific terms of his plea agreement, including any government sentencing recommendation, have not been made public. Sentencing for the co-defendants was expected in the summer of 2026 following appellate proceedings, and Peled’s sentencing timing is tied to the resolution of the broader case.¹⁶

1
Texas Online Private Security. Speartip Security Group Business Record
2
KXAN. Erik Maund Murder-for-Hire: Online Reviews of Security Business Were Left Prior to Arrests
3
Austin American-Statesman. Erik Charles Maund, Speartip Security Group, Gilad Peled Murder Plot
4
Audacy. Ex-Marines Implicated in Nashville Contracting Killing
5
Supreme Court of the United States. Maund v. United States, Petition for Writ of Certiorari
6
Texas Monthly. Erik Maund Blackmail Murder-for-Hire
7
ABC News. Nashville Couple’s Murder Uncovers Dark Conspiracy
8
FindLaw. United States v. Maund, Sixth Circuit
9
ABC News 4. Car Dealership Owner Erik Maund Convicted in Murder-for-Hire Scheme
10
Texas Monthly. The Problem With Erik – Episode 5: How to Perform a Hit
11
CourtListener. United States v. Maund, Docket
12
CaseMine. United States v. Maund
13
CBS Austin. Austin Man Involved in 2020 Murder-for-Hire Plot Pleads Guilty to Three Counts
14
Cornell Law Institute. 18 U.S.C. § 1958 – Use of Interstate Commerce Facilities in the Commission of Murder-for-Hire
15
GovInfo. United States v. Maund, Memorandum and Order
16
Texas Monthly. The Problem With Erik Update: Judge Says No Retrial for Erik Maund