Texas Man Paid Hitman to Kill Escort Over Her Threats to Reveal Their Relationship

A Texas car dealer has been found guilty of a murder-for-hire plot to kill an escort and her boyfriend who attempted to blackmail him.

Erik Charles Maud hired two retired Marines and a retired Israeli Defense Forces member to kill the woman after she sought $25,000 to keep their relationship secret.

Texas Car dealer paid Marines, ex-IDF member to kill escort, blackmailer over threats they’d expose sex trysts https://t.co/nel6AtR7LA pic.twitter.com/gXvKhcXwUf

— New York Post (@nypost) November 30, 2023

"Maund’s privately funded investigation into who sent the extortion demands became a murder-for-hire plot involving a retired Israeli Defense Force (IDF) member and two retired U.S. Marines," the New York Post reported.

"On March 12, 2020, a day after Maund was supposed to pay up, Williams and her then-boyfriend William Lanway, who sent the blackmail texts, were found dead in a Nashville construction site with bullet holes in their heads," it added.

Married Texas car dealership heir, Erik Charles Maund, 48, is found guilty of paying two ex-US Marines and former IDF fighter $750k to kill sex worker, 33, and boyfriend after they tried to blackmail him out of $25k https://t.co/k0Yn7BsQ6z pic.twitter.com/Ys5anqIgJC

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 30, 2023

Both the woman and her boyfriend were found shot multiple times in a crashed vehicle at a Nashville construction site in 2021.

"Maund was arrested over a year after the murders, along with Austin residents Gilad Peled, 47, and Byron Brockway, 46, and North Carolina resident Adam Carey, 30 - all former military men who worked with private security companies," the Daily Mail reported.

"Prosecutors said Maund, the grandson of an automotive tycoon, plotted to kill the couple after he began receiving texts demanding $25,000 to conceal the extramarital encounters he had with Nashville-based Williams," it continued.

The agreement included payments of $100,000 to each of the Americans involved and $550,000 to Peled, a former IDF member.

Maud is the heir of an automotive group in Austin. His sentencing has not yet been given.

The deadly plot has now led to convictions in the case that will result in Maud likely serving many years in prison.