Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: So when Eric asks how much does something like that cost?
Speaker 2: He follows up with, you know, five hundred thousand? Is
Speaker 2: that sound about right? And Gil says, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: five hundred thousand would do it.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about what the choices writers make,
Speaker 1: both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the unpublished details behind their stories. For this week's episode,
Speaker 1: we traveled to my hometown of Austin, Texas. An iconic
Speaker 1: local business is embroiled in a murder for higher case
Speaker 1: that attracts national attention. Why did Eric mand hire someone
Speaker 1: to kill two people? Katie Vine from Texas Monthly tells
Speaker 1: me about her podcast, The Problem with Eric. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about this story. First of all, how did you
Speaker 1: get roped into doing this story? Did you bring it
Speaker 1: to the folks at Texas Monthly or was it pitched
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 2: Now, we were lucky enough at Texas Monthly that Anna Worrel,
Speaker 2: who's a freelance podcast producer, came to us with this story.
Speaker 2: She's an Austin native and was working in the film
Speaker 2: world out in Los Angeles and her dad kept sending
Speaker 2: her updates on this case, sent her clippings and stuff,
Speaker 2: and so she got interested and brought it to us,
Speaker 2: and I'm really glad that she did. You know, some
Speaker 2: of the folks in the podcast studio brought it to
Speaker 2: me and I think a week later we were on
Speaker 2: a plane to Nashville, shaking hands in the airport. Hi,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be basically living with you for the
Speaker 2: next three weeks.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: We've had several Texas Monthly podcasts featured on Wicked Words,
Speaker 1: but I always feel like, you know, they're Texas stories.
Speaker 1: I always feel like they're small towns. But this is
Speaker 1: not this is where we are, this isn't Austin. So
Speaker 1: before we get into the story, is it different working
Speaker 1: in a bigger city have a different feel than maybe
Speaker 1: like a more small town story.
Speaker 2: Yes, although you can kind of find the slice of
Speaker 2: the big city that is basically a small town. And
Speaker 2: so while the crime stars that I've done in small towns,
Speaker 2: you are looking for that person who knows everybody to
Speaker 2: introduce you around. We didn't have that necessary here. But
Speaker 2: we could find people who were in Eric Mond's world,
Speaker 2: which is its own little universe, if that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So like the Austin Country club and you know, the
Speaker 2: world of car dealerships, those are little worlds that we
Speaker 2: could tap into and let them explain the culture in
Speaker 2: which he'd grown up.
Speaker 1: Let's just start from the beginning with the dealership. It's
Speaker 1: Charles Montyota, which I have heard about I feel like
Speaker 1: my entire life. I don't know if that's true, but
Speaker 1: it's an institution, a car dealership here in Austin. Tell
Speaker 1: me about the origin of that car dealership, since there's
Speaker 1: so much money involved, and then we'll get into a
Speaker 1: little bit about how Eric kind of grew up and
Speaker 1: you know, this must have shaped some of the decisions
Speaker 1: that he made. But tell me about the car dealership first.
Speaker 2: Sure, the Mond name has it definitely been blasted on
Speaker 2: TV and radio ads in Central Texas for decades. Eric
Speaker 2: Mond's grandpa, Charles Moond, founded the first Mond dealership in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven, and over the years, that company, as
Speaker 2: you say, became this empire, the total Loston institution. It
Speaker 2: grew over the decades to include Volkswagen and eventually Toyota.
Speaker 2: As a grandson. Then Eric is one of the heirs
Speaker 2: to the empire with forty million dollars, high profile enough
Speaker 2: that anyone could google him and find out that he's
Speaker 2: got money.
Speaker 1: So we have Charlesmond, and this is a huge empire.
Speaker 1: And is Eric what is he like? What's the impression
Speaker 1: you get from him? Is he working in the dealership
Speaker 1: or is he sort of the playboy kind of guy.
Speaker 2: I don't know that he was a playboy necessarily, but
Speaker 2: he was married to a former dealership office worker. They'd
Speaker 2: raised two kids. They had a giant mansion next to
Speaker 2: the golf course at the country club. He had a
Speaker 2: close group of friends who he played golf with all
Speaker 2: the time. One guy who we talked to, who he
Speaker 2: worked with at the Volkswagen dealership, said that he basically
Speaker 2: would sit around and dip snuff and make night comments
Speaker 2: like he just you don't get the impression from talking
Speaker 2: to the people who we were able to talk to
Speaker 2: that he was a terrifically hard worker or had a
Speaker 2: ton of insight into the dealership itself, as his granddad
Speaker 2: certainly did. I mean, people talk about Charles Mont his granddad,
Speaker 2: as if he were sort of legendary figure who'd come
Speaker 2: from really nothing in East Texas and got to Austin
Speaker 2: and built this from scratch. That's sort of who Eric is.
Speaker 2: He's sort of living in the shadow of somebody who
Speaker 2: was able to have the rags to riches legacy, and
Speaker 2: he's just sort of like kid who's born at the
Speaker 2: Silver Spoon.
Speaker 1: Was Charles Mond alive when Eric was growing up? Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So were they close? I mean, how did they view
Speaker 1: each other? Do you know?
Speaker 2: I don't know what the relationship was between Eric and
Speaker 2: Charles Moond. I only know the relationship between Dougmond was
Speaker 2: Eric's father, and Charles Wond because there's a story that
Speaker 2: we were told over and over again about a knife
Speaker 2: fight had occurred at the Austin Gundry Club. Who between
Speaker 2: father and son? So Charles Wond I don't know who
Speaker 2: pulled the knife first, what kind of knife it was,
Speaker 2: what it was about. But a lot of people said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: did you hear about the knife fight?
Speaker 1: Do we know anything about Doug and Eric and how
Speaker 1: they got along?
Speaker 2: Very tight? Doug and Eric were tight.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you all reached out to basically, it sounds
Speaker 1: like on his side as many people as possible, with
Speaker 1: the exception of the kids. You tried the wife. Is
Speaker 1: the wife around?
Speaker 2: Oh sure, yeah, that was a no go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody wanted to participate. Yeah, but you have to try.
Speaker 1: I meanjournalists, you have to try. So when we start
Speaker 1: moving through this story, Eric sounds lazy and not ambitious.
Speaker 1: Does he seem like a good father, good husband? Do
Speaker 1: you have any impression about that.
Speaker 2: By March of twenty twenty, when the main events of
Speaker 2: this story occur, Eric and his wife are already on
Speaker 2: the brink of a divorce. So, you know, I think
Speaker 2: if she didn't have suspicions then that he was having,
Speaker 2: you know, affairs or seeing escorts, she certainly knew it
Speaker 2: a little later because he had Charlie Sheen's assistant, who'd
Speaker 2: become a someone who kind of was hanging around the dealership.
Speaker 2: He had him forge a light detector, saying that Eric
Speaker 2: wasn't being unfaithful. So you make make of that, would
Speaker 2: you will?
Speaker 1: Okay, so he is a philanderer. It sounds like she
Speaker 1: wants to divorce him. When does this pivotal affair come in?
Speaker 1: That is the crux of this whole story. It sounds like,
Speaker 1: what do we know about what happens with that march?
Speaker 2: Maybe it's maybe it's late February of twenty twenty. Eric
Speaker 2: is going to go to Nashville, where his son is
Speaker 2: in college, and during that visit, he texts an escort
Speaker 2: whom he's seen once before. They seemed familiar with each
Speaker 2: other according to the texts, and they set up a
Speaker 2: night to meet, and all the text evidence shows they
Speaker 2: did meet, and then he made arrangements with another escort
Speaker 2: for the following night. I did not find evidence whether
Speaker 2: or not that actually happened, but he was trying to
Speaker 2: at least set up a date with a separate escort. Initially,
Speaker 2: that was that, and he came back to Austin and
Speaker 2: figured everything was fine.
Speaker 1: So this was not unusual for him hiring escorts. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you get that impression?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I can only say that he definitely
Speaker 2: had seen this particular escort at least once before. Leila
Speaker 2: Loved was the name that she used. Her real name
Speaker 2: was Holly Williams.
Speaker 1: So he returns to Austin after seeing his kid at college.
Speaker 1: And you said, this was about late February, So we
Speaker 1: are on the cusp of the pandemic right there.
Speaker 2: You're coming right up to the edge of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe this was like New York things happening
Speaker 1: in New York at this point. And then okay, and
Speaker 1: the pandemic hits. When is the next incident that happens?
Speaker 1: And I know that it involves Holly. What happens next?
Speaker 1: This man is on the edge. He's a hiring escorts,
Speaker 1: but he's on the edge. He's trying to get a divorce.
Speaker 1: He's got a lot of money. First of all, before
Speaker 1: you answer that, what is the divorce going to be? Like?
Speaker 1: Is she going to get a lot of money out
Speaker 1: of him? Because of his money?
Speaker 2: This has always been something that has confused me because
Speaker 2: apparently they had a prenup and according to testimony from
Speaker 2: his attorney who wrote up the prenup, that was a
Speaker 2: as I guess he would say, a very good prenup,
Speaker 2: and so he wasn't really in danger of losing a
Speaker 2: lot of money in that way. I think it was
Speaker 2: about his motivation was not financial necessarily. The next thing
Speaker 2: that happens is Holly Williams. It turns out as a boyfriend.
Speaker 2: The boyfriend is this nanke you redhead named Bill Landway
Speaker 2: from the suburbs of Nashville. They started going to DM
Speaker 2: parties a lot together and they got very close, and
Speaker 2: then he found out she was in escort. I guess
Speaker 2: he didn't know that rightway, he got extremely possessive and jealous.
Speaker 2: Also wasn't making a lot of money. It sounds like
Speaker 2: at the time he was delivering Amazon packages a little bad,
Speaker 2: and he was dealing cards for high end poker games,
Speaker 2: but not really anything steady. And he started to get
Speaker 2: a hold of her phone when she wasn't around, and
Speaker 2: digging up her client list, and in one case he
Speaker 2: found a Vanderbilt radiologist whom he threatened. He didn't extort
Speaker 2: the radiologist, he was just threatening him and said, you know,
Speaker 2: if you see Hollywood's again and I'll tell your wife.
Speaker 2: He also found Eric's number and he must have done
Speaker 2: enough googling. Doesn't take much to figure out that Eric
Speaker 2: Land has a lot of money. This time he started
Speaker 2: asking for money. I don't know if there were others,
Speaker 2: if there were others that didn't come into evidence in the.
Speaker 3: Trial, but we know of at least those two that
Speaker 3: Bill Lanway was reaching out to Eric as most people
Speaker 3: would in this situation, completely breaked out.
Speaker 1: So he doesn't extort money from the radiologist, but he
Speaker 1: does from Eric. So he makes this decision. And what
Speaker 1: is he doing? So he's calling Eric and he says,
Speaker 1: You're going to need to give me money or I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell everybody that you've hired an escort. Is
Speaker 1: that pretty much what ends up happening. How much? Which
Speaker 1: is he demanding twenty five thousand dollars? You would think
Speaker 1: you would ask for more money.
Speaker 2: Everybody assumes that he mistyped it, but he wrote at
Speaker 2: one point twenty five hundred, even lower twenty five hundred
Speaker 2: to make all your problems go away, right, But Eric
Speaker 2: and the people around Eric testified that twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: was the number that was being batted around. So on
Speaker 2: the phone and however else Eric was getting this information,
Speaker 2: it was clear to him anyway that it was twenty
Speaker 2: five thousand.
Speaker 1: Now does Bill's girlfriend, the escort Holly, does she know
Speaker 1: that this is happening.
Speaker 2: Or no, There's been no evidence that she knew about
Speaker 2: any of this.
Speaker 1: What are the instructions that Bill has given Eric? Is
Speaker 1: this like a wire transfer or what's supposed to happen?
Speaker 2: I don't remember what the method was supposed to be.
Speaker 2: But Eric decides instead of doing that, he talks to
Speaker 2: one of his colleagues at the dealership, and that guy
Speaker 2: gets in touch with somebody named Gil Pulled. Gil Paled
Speaker 2: is a new security worker at the dealership. He claimed
Speaker 2: to have served in the Masade, the Israeli intelligence agency.
Speaker 2: He has built like I mean, just like a brick,
Speaker 2: and so Gil suggested to Eric that he go to
Speaker 2: the police, but Eric said he didn't want to be embarrassed,
Speaker 2: and so Gil told him, Okay, I got it.
Speaker 1: I'll take care of it.
Speaker 2: He then goes to another guy in Austin, not far
Speaker 2: from his house. This guy, Brian Brockway, lives nearby, and
Speaker 2: he said, what I can do for you is, you know,
Speaker 2: just build this, do a surveillance operation in Nashville and
Speaker 2: just kind of spoke around. At this point. They just
Speaker 2: know that it has something to do with Layla love, right,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of all they have to go on.
Speaker 2: And so the idea is Brian Brockway will get a
Speaker 2: little team together and they'll go to Nashville and sniff
Speaker 2: it out. And that was all that it was supposed
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's some weird disconnect with this part
Speaker 1: of the story because twenty five thousand is not a lot, okay,
Speaker 1: And then I'm thinking, okay, twenty five thousand. Of course,
Speaker 1: we've already said this over and over again. He can
Speaker 1: spend this. This is no big deal. He's getting a divorce,
Speaker 1: I mean basically, right. I mean he's sort of the
Speaker 1: relationship is essentially over. He's not trying to save a relationship.
Speaker 1: He has adult children, he doesn't have little children. Is
Speaker 1: it really sort of this shame? I know he's very
Speaker 1: close to his father. You really think he's driven by
Speaker 1: like the shame the public ridicule of this coming out. Somehow,
Speaker 1: it just seems so extreme to then hire eventually a
Speaker 1: hitman to do this.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's important to remember that he didn't
Speaker 2: go into this hiring a Hitman, right. He just went
Speaker 2: into it, hiring somebody to look into it, and then
Speaker 2: it just sort of escalates. I can't say exactly that
Speaker 2: it got out of his control because he's paid for
Speaker 2: but he just kind of kept signing off on you
Speaker 2: want to do what sure, go do that yes, And
Speaker 2: so the guys on the ground could not seem to
Speaker 2: get Holly or Bill Landway to respond. They would knock
Speaker 2: on the door, they would text.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: The guys who landed were very experienced. Brian Brockway had
Speaker 2: deployed all of the world conducting special ops on behalf
Speaker 2: of the US Marines, and he hired this kid, Adam,
Speaker 2: a twenty nine year old former marine. There were two
Speaker 2: other guys who were involved, one whom we call Red
Speaker 2: because he has had to keep his name out of
Speaker 2: the press because he's still concerned that some of these
Speaker 2: guys and their friends may come after him. And then
Speaker 2: there's a guy named Tony Rapinsky who landed got one
Speaker 2: whiff of the situation and was like, I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is all bad.
Speaker 2: This can only go in bad directions based on the
Speaker 2: things that I'm seeing. In fact, like when he sat
Speaker 2: down to give his testimony. I remember one of the
Speaker 2: defense attorneys. Eric's defense attorney asked, you know, what were
Speaker 2: you most afraid of when you landed in Nashville, and
Speaker 2: he just said stupidity and that basically said it all.
Speaker 2: Like I can really testify. After that, it was kind
Speaker 2: of like, Okay, yeah, that loves it up.
Speaker 1: But I mean, the more people you involved in this conspiracy,
Speaker 1: the bigger. Well, of course, I'm thinking this is way
Speaker 1: more than twenty five thousand. I'm assuming this is really
Speaker 1: he's going to be on the whole as we're going along.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm thinking, you know, the
Speaker 1: more people that you're adding in, the riskier it is.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like he really was just scared, right.
Speaker 2: I think so he was out of his element. If
Speaker 2: he had dealt with blackmail before, it wasn't this type
Speaker 2: of black mail, I don't. I mean, I don't have
Speaker 2: any evidence that he'd ever dealt with it before, but
Speaker 2: I don't know, certainly not this type, bro, because his
Speaker 2: reactions are give up a whiff of.
Speaker 1: Desperation, Yeah, very extreme.
Speaker 2: Adam, who was the youngest, you know, the group, the
Speaker 2: twenty nine year old, starts making comments about he could
Speaker 2: get rid of this problem for fifty or sixty. K
Speaker 2: Red thinks it's a joke at first, but then starts thinking,
Speaker 2: this kid's loose cannon. He's really immature. Adam goes to
Speaker 2: Walmart and buys cable tize and burlap, and you know,
Speaker 2: the rest of the guys are like, what is this
Speaker 2: kid up to? But then Brian after Red and Tony
Speaker 2: Rapinsky leave Nashville and it's just Brian and Adam and
Speaker 2: it's coming to this sort deadline point for Eric. They
Speaker 2: finally take that idea to Gil Pullett and say, what
Speaker 2: if we just take.
Speaker 1: Them out, both of them. They're talking about Bill and Holly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at first they talk about just Bill, but then
Speaker 2: based on something that was so nothing. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think they claimed that they saw Holly walking around with
Speaker 2: like a bag from a home depot or office depot
Speaker 2: or something, and based on just like that said, oh,
Speaker 2: I think she's spending a lot of money. We don't
Speaker 2: know if they just wanted to cover their bases, if
Speaker 2: they wanted to do a thorough job, if they really
Speaker 2: just needed the money and so they needed kind of
Speaker 2: to amp up the threat. Whatever the case is, they
Speaker 2: brought it to Gil. Gil brought it to Eric. It's
Speaker 2: then I think the evening of March eleventh, Eric is home.
Speaker 2: His landline rings a voice he doesn't recognize, which is
Speaker 2: Bill says, you have till eight o'clock tonight or he's
Speaker 2: gonna tell Eric's wife everything. And then at eight o'clock
Speaker 2: he texts, it's eight o'clock and I'm going to follow
Speaker 2: up through with everything and thank you. It's just weird.
Speaker 2: That night, Gil takes the idea to Eric and he
Speaker 2: drives up outside of Eric's house and he says, you know,
Speaker 2: this is what Adam and Brian propose edm and Brian
Speaker 2: had proposed course to take them out for sixteen k each,
Speaker 2: so one hundred and twenty total that Eric would be
Speaker 2: paying out. But that's not what Gila Led told Eric
Speaker 2: because gilad Led was desperate for cash himself. Gil needed
Speaker 2: I think he had eleven dollars in the bank at
Speaker 2: that moment. He had two little kids and was having
Speaker 2: trouble with his wife's business. He could see, you know,
Speaker 2: COVID was coming, his wife had a salon. Everything was
Speaker 2: shutting down. I mean, I think there was just sort
Speaker 2: of panic in the air. And so when Eric asks
Speaker 2: how much does something like that cost. He follows up with,
Speaker 2: you know, five hundred thousand Is that sound about right?
Speaker 2: And Gil says, yeah, I think five hundred thousand wouldn't
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: Did you find out or did it come out during
Speaker 1: any of the trial. Did you find out if Eric
Speaker 1: had told anyone else about this in his family other
Speaker 1: than you know, talking to all these goons. Did his
Speaker 1: dad know? Did anybody know if they did?
Speaker 2: That was never revealed in court.
Speaker 1: So tell me how this starts to unfold. Eric says, okay,
Speaker 1: half a million's fine? And what happens after that? You
Speaker 1: have all of these players involved, who all sound like
Speaker 1: goons to me.
Speaker 2: Well again, by this time, it's just Adam and Bryan
Speaker 2: on the ground. That night, they just decide they're going
Speaker 2: to surprise Bill and Holly in the parking lot outside
Speaker 2: of Holly's apartment, which is what they do. They kidnap
Speaker 2: Holly first, They shoot Bill dead, keep him in the car,
Speaker 2: then keep her alive in the back seat. One of
Speaker 2: the special ops guys drives Holly's car with Bill and
Speaker 2: Holly in it to a site, an off site location,
Speaker 2: and then the other special ops worker takes a rental
Speaker 2: car behind Holly's car to follow them as sort of
Speaker 2: the getaway car.
Speaker 1: And Holly is alive. Does anybody talk about what hery?
Speaker 1: I'm sure she terrified and has no idea what's happening,
Speaker 1: but her boyfriend is dead.
Speaker 2: We do find out later in undercover recordings that they
Speaker 2: were possibly surprised. It gets a little confusing, like, on
Speaker 2: one hand, you hear from gil Paled that yes, it
Speaker 2: was the plan was always Holly and Bill. But when
Speaker 2: Brian Brockway is telling the story to Red in an
Speaker 2: undercover recording that the FBI set up later, he tells
Speaker 2: read that they were shocked all of a sudden, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, it's both of them. So now we've got
Speaker 2: two of them. And they were kind of telling Holly
Speaker 2: it's fine, it's fine, We're not after you, and then
Speaker 2: ended up killing her in the back seat just to
Speaker 2: kind of cover their tracks.
Speaker 1: Where do they end up putting the bodies? So they
Speaker 1: have these these two adults. Are they driving out of
Speaker 1: town or what are they doing?
Speaker 2: They drove kind of where there was a construction site.
Speaker 2: It's not far from Hollway's apartment. They just drove kind
Speaker 2: of around the corner where there was this little construction site,
Speaker 2: and they made it look like Holly's car had kind
Speaker 2: of just driven down into a ditch to hit a tree.
Speaker 2: On the first glance, it looked like it could have
Speaker 2: been just a car crash, except that when you look
Speaker 2: in the car itself, there's nobody in the driver's seat.
Speaker 2: I mean, one person is in the back seat and
Speaker 2: the other person is literally like, I don't know why
Speaker 2: upside down. Bill was upside down in the passenger seat.
Speaker 1: Wow, And of course they've been shot once you start
Speaker 1: looking at it. Okay, who makes the discovery of these
Speaker 1: two bodies.
Speaker 2: It was a construction worker who got to the job
Speaker 2: site the morning of March thirteenth, We spotted Holly's Acura
Speaker 2: and calls nine to one one. Then the Metro Nashville
Speaker 2: Police Department starts to investigate, and pretty soon after that
Speaker 2: they start to put pieces together. Probably because hollyhead recording
Speaker 2: devices all over her house.
Speaker 1: What she did.
Speaker 2: Why Bill Landway had been increasingly abusive and to the
Speaker 2: point where she had even filed restraining orders against him.
Speaker 2: I mean it was on again, off again, and so
Speaker 2: even though he had these instructions, he would kind of
Speaker 2: still come by and they would make up and it
Speaker 2: would all be fine. It was complicated that way, And
Speaker 2: so when the officers went into Holly's apartment, they had
Speaker 2: all this video, but all you could see from the
Speaker 2: video as far as the murders are concerned, is you
Speaker 2: see Holly and Billy in the apartment. Then you can
Speaker 2: hear everything happening in the parking lot, but you can't
Speaker 2: see it. But then they rewind the tape and they
Speaker 2: see these suspicious looking characters, big guys not facing the camera,
Speaker 2: seemingly intentionally knocking on her door asking to talk. So
Speaker 2: they feel like, okay, this is probably connected too. Then
Speaker 2: they release the video to the public and say, hey,
Speaker 2: anyone know who this guy is. It's sort of a
Speaker 2: amazing when you hear the tech workers for the investigative
Speaker 2: units describe the tools that they have. I mean, it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, picking off the cell towers and trying to
Speaker 2: figure out, like, well, who set up this address and
Speaker 2: whose phone is this and all that. And so they
Speaker 2: were finally able to figure out this involved Eric MOHMD.
Speaker 2: They still didn't know exactly how it involved ericmand but
Speaker 2: they were able to get stuff off the cloud and
Speaker 2: find some messages and things like that, and because then
Speaker 2: it became multiple states, then it's involved the FBI.
Speaker 1: I know this is an odd question, but what is
Speaker 1: Eric using that you all are able to figure out
Speaker 1: that he requested Holly one night and then another escort
Speaker 1: another night. Are the police tracing something to be able
Speaker 1: to figure out what he had been doing?
Speaker 2: I think that was P four one one and SLIKSA
Speaker 2: were two sites that Holly had been using. Their sites
Speaker 2: coming used with escorts, and so I think it was
Speaker 2: just going through all of her clients and trying to
Speaker 2: figure out which numbers matched. The investigators were finally able
Speaker 2: to get texts between Holly and Bill to illuminate that
Speaker 2: relationship and conflict, and then they were also able to
Speaker 2: get all of the texts between Bill and others, and
Speaker 2: so he was they, you know, by like who is
Speaker 2: this number? Well, this is this number belongs to some
Speaker 2: guy in Austin. Why is he texting him for money?
Speaker 2: I don't understand what's going on here. So then they
Speaker 2: have to kind of start piecing it out enough that
Speaker 2: they can make the connection to Gil Paled and then
Speaker 2: they start getting the bank records and learn that Eric
Speaker 2: wand transferred one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Glad
Speaker 2: Paled the day of the murders, which is significant for investigator. Right,
Speaker 2: they find a situation report that wrote to Gil talking
Speaker 2: about the surveillance of Holly and Bill. Point I think
Speaker 2: the FBI knew really what they were looking at. Hitman
Speaker 2: for hire resulting in murder is pretty rare. A lot
Speaker 2: of times it's hit man for hire, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: get to the point of the actual murders, and this
Speaker 2: was a rare instance where it did. And so they're
Speaker 2: kind of working backwards.
Speaker 1: So it's Gill and Adam only is Byron in this
Speaker 1: at all?
Speaker 4: Or no?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, so Gil was sort of the middleman, right.
Speaker 2: It's Brian and Adam were the guys on the ground
Speaker 2: doing the shooting, and they were never able to clarify
Speaker 2: who which one of them pulled the trigger or if
Speaker 2: they both pulled the trigger. At the end of the day,
Speaker 2: it was tried as a conspiracy, and so it didn't matter.
Speaker 1: Once they kill Bill and Hawley and try to stage
Speaker 1: just as an accident, is there a text or a
Speaker 1: phone call to Eric confirming that this is done.
Speaker 2: The only way that the investigators knew that Gil and
Speaker 2: Eric knew is because all their phones suddenly go silent,
Speaker 2: like Adam dismantles his account, Brian gets rid of his account,
Speaker 2: All the accounts suddenly disappear.
Speaker 1: How quickly does this case come together after Bill and
Speaker 1: Holly are discovered.
Speaker 2: Not very quickly, not very quickly at all. So that
Speaker 2: was right when COVID hits right March twenty twenty, and
Speaker 2: they're not able to put anything together until they gets
Speaker 2: summer of twenty twenty one, when they finally have done
Speaker 2: enough desk work, you know, searching bank records, phone records,
Speaker 2: all that kind of jazz, and they figure they need
Speaker 2: a confidential source whom they can leverage. And Red had
Speaker 2: just applied for a job that we can't say, but
Speaker 2: you can guess something that required really high security clearance.
Speaker 2: And the FBI met him in the interview and told
Speaker 2: him he needed to start texting Adam and Brian again
Speaker 2: and set up a ruse as if Red were going
Speaker 2: to attempt something similar in a similar situation where a
Speaker 2: guy was being exhorted by a woman and needed to
Speaker 2: get rid of her, and so he was pretending like
Speaker 2: he was looking for tips like what did you learn
Speaker 2: from your Nashville experience? You know, I never really heard
Speaker 2: what went on? Can you tell me more? And so
Speaker 2: using that technique, he was able to get them both
Speaker 2: to talk extensively, even though they both both Adam and
Speaker 2: Brian started out very nervous. And that was one of
Speaker 2: the most amazing things to me about doing this as
Speaker 2: a podcast, And of course it's a standalone story too,
Speaker 2: But when you can hear the audio of Adam and
Speaker 2: Brian discussing what they did, things they would have done differently,
Speaker 2: advice that they give to Red, it's just so chilling.
Speaker 2: You're just in the room with them, you know, dear
Speaker 2: a nonchalant it is.
Speaker 1: How well did Red know them that well?
Speaker 2: I mean, he was in the same circles and they
Speaker 2: knew a lot of people in common, but I don't
Speaker 2: think naming each other very well before all.
Speaker 1: This, So you all ended up interviewing Red for this
Speaker 1: or no.
Speaker 2: No, I'm hoping after sentencing, I don't think we're going
Speaker 2: to have many surprises because it's mandatory life or this
Speaker 2: kind of conviction. But there always appeals, so you know,
Speaker 2: everybody's kind of waiting. Some of those people who are
Speaker 2: in with the investigators, and maybe even on in any
Speaker 2: of the other groups. You know, if there's anybody from
Speaker 2: Bryan's family or Eric's family, or at a family or
Speaker 2: even the victims' families who wanted to talk, I think
Speaker 2: maybe they will wait until sentencing as well.
Speaker 1: Tell me about some of the things that you can
Speaker 1: recall that were on this undercover wire. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that was surprising to you?
Speaker 2: A lot of it was surprising the level of detail
Speaker 2: that Adam was able to give. Read, you know, make
Speaker 2: sure use these kinds of gloves, make sure you tape,
Speaker 2: you know, put two pairs of gloves on, so don't
Speaker 2: leave any DNA and TAPA shut on it, so on
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. Probably shocking to me was Brian
Speaker 2: saying how he really respected Adam for killing Holly in
Speaker 2: the backseat because he knows a lot of guys have
Speaker 2: a bleeding heart and couldn't do that, And that kind
Speaker 2: of talk was pretty pretty shocking for me.
Speaker 1: And Red handled it well, I'm assuming, I mean, they
Speaker 1: believed him obviously, so he got them everything that they needed,
Speaker 1: essentially he did.
Speaker 2: And then the FBI grabbed Gil coming off the airplane
Speaker 2: at the Austin Airport, and put him on the phone
Speaker 2: with Eric Moond, knowing that Eric was driving up from
Speaker 2: a hunting trip in South Texas. I think this was
Speaker 2: December of twenty twenty one, So again, like took a
Speaker 2: long time to get to this point of starting to
Speaker 2: arrest anybody, and then everybody's basically arrested on the same day,
Speaker 2: just after Gil gets Eric on the phone and they record,
Speaker 2: I records that and Gil tells Eric, you know, we
Speaker 2: have a problem. The Nashville shooters want an extra twenty
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars to keep quiet. What should we do?
Speaker 2: Do you want me to take care of it? And
Speaker 2: Eric just says, give me a number. That's his response,
Speaker 2: Not what are you talking about anything like that. Just
Speaker 2: give me a number, and Gil says one hundred. And
Speaker 2: Eric says, honestly, I'd rather take care of it permanently
Speaker 2: than do the twenty five thousand. So it's almost like
Speaker 2: his idea. He says, I'll just wire it to you,
Speaker 2: just like last time. Wow, it's a hard thing for
Speaker 2: him to defend himself. After that, the FBI descends on
Speaker 2: him pretty quickly, arrests him, pulls him in, and after
Speaker 2: all that, it's just a matter of going to trial.
Speaker 1: Then do they say what Eric's reaction was? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that sounds like a silly question, but was
Speaker 1: he in denial about it or what did he do?
Speaker 2: It was hard to say what his reaction was.
Speaker 4: We watched the video as the FBI played a recording
Speaker 4: of the murders from Holly's security camera audio, and they
Speaker 4: recorded Eric's reaction.
Speaker 2: He shows that he's listening really hard. He keeps saying
Speaker 2: like kind of I don't know, you know what this is?
Speaker 2: And and they keep coming back to him with you
Speaker 2: know exactly what this is?
Speaker 1: Does everybody else turn on him? Essentially? I mean, do
Speaker 1: you get the real real story? Once these guys are
Speaker 1: all under arrest?
Speaker 2: Not really really. None of them testified in the trial
Speaker 2: except for Guilfilett. They said that there might be some
Speaker 2: Google rooms in his sentencing if you testified, but everybody
Speaker 2: else said nothing and pled not guilty, which you know,
Speaker 2: someone explained to me that they would all, of course
Speaker 2: plead not guilty because it would be sort of notpractice
Speaker 2: for an attorney to tell your client to plead guilty
Speaker 2: if you know they're looking at life anyway, so their
Speaker 2: only chance is to plead not guilty even I says
Speaker 2: sort of a slam dunk.
Speaker 1: Now, what are the chart or just for all these
Speaker 1: guys because Gil doesn't pull the trigger, he's not even
Speaker 1: at the scene. He's the middleman who's organizing things. What
Speaker 1: is he charged with?
Speaker 2: So Adam, Brian and Eric were trying who murder for hire?
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that's what Gil was also charged with.
Speaker 2: Because it's a conspiracy, They're all charged together. And then
Speaker 2: Adam and Brian were also charged and found guilty of
Speaker 2: two additional charges, conspiracy to kidnapping and kidnapping with death
Speaker 2: resulting because they'd taken Holly while she was still alive
Speaker 2: in the parking lot and then killed her later than
Speaker 2: they had the extra kidnapping charges.
Speaker 1: Do we ever see Holly's family or Bill's family through
Speaker 1: any of this?
Speaker 2: Not really. Bill's family is pretty complicated. His dad shot
Speaker 2: his mom or stabbed his mom when he was really
Speaker 2: little in.
Speaker 1: Front of him.
Speaker 2: But he was raised by other family members who did
Speaker 2: come to the child but understandably wanted the mood to
Speaker 2: talk to reporters. And Hollick's family was also grieving and wow,
Speaker 2: they were in the courtroom, didn't want to interact with.
Speaker 1: Us what happens with Eric, because he's you know, now
Speaker 1: kind of the central character here. Has he gone on trial?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were all tried together in Nashville and found
Speaker 2: guilty after I think it was about three weeks testimony
Speaker 2: and said then the sentencing. Now they're just kind of
Speaker 2: hanging out in federal prison waiting for where they're going
Speaker 2: to be permanently and for how long, and so we'll
Speaker 2: know more about that. I think by the end of
Speaker 2: the year.
Speaker 1: Any reaction from his family, Eric's family, his ex wife,
Speaker 1: or the kids. Was anyone there from his family?
Speaker 2: His family sat in front of us and they were
Speaker 2: underto you know, they were upset.
Speaker 1: Of course, did they believe it.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know what they said to
Speaker 2: each other when they would go back to their hotel
Speaker 2: in Nashville. We were told by other folks who hang
Speaker 2: out in Eric's circles that in the days leading up
Speaker 2: to the jury's decision that the people were kind of split.
Speaker 2: There were some people who were just thinking like, well,
Speaker 2: he probably just said take care of it, and somebody
Speaker 2: misinterpreted that. But I think after all the evidence came
Speaker 2: out and that got around Austin the opinion shifted a bit,
Speaker 2: although there are still people who we've talked to who
Speaker 2: not defend him necessarily, but don't believe that he should
Speaker 2: go that Eric should go to prison for the rest
Speaker 2: of his life, because I said, he only did it
Speaker 2: the one time, and it's not like something that he
Speaker 2: would probably do again. So there are folks who say
Speaker 2: things like that or justify it one way or the other.
Speaker 2: I don't know what Eric's personal reaction is to it.
Speaker 2: I did get the sense from just watching him in
Speaker 2: court that he was pretty devastated by the decision. Adam
Speaker 2: and Brian were totally impossible to read. They had no reaction.
Speaker 1: What's your feeling about this whole story? I mean, why
Speaker 1: is this an interesting story to you? Why would you
Speaker 1: want to spend so much time on this particular story?
Speaker 1: What does it say?
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of talk these days about privilege,
Speaker 2: and this was a doozy somebody who really didn't see
Speaker 2: that his actions had any consequences, or that the consequences
Speaker 2: that it meant for other people weren't any relevant. I,
Speaker 2: as you know, like generally do convent stories. If I
Speaker 2: do true crime, I normally steer away from murders. But
Speaker 2: this one did have some overlap with the con men
Speaker 2: who I've written about, which is that conman always think
Speaker 2: they're smarter than everybody else and that the rules are flexible.
Speaker 2: One guy explained to me, you know, rules are man made,
Speaker 2: and he too was a man who could make rules.
Speaker 2: And I think while Eric's not a con man, he
Speaker 2: did share that philosophy. He kind of just felt like,
Speaker 2: just pay the money and get it taken care of,
Speaker 2: and you don't have to get your hands dirty. Also
Speaker 2: was really intrigued by all of the motivations that were
Speaker 2: sort of creating this perfect storm in which this was
Speaker 2: sort of an inevitability. You have the jealous boyfriend who
Speaker 2: lashes out of his girlfriend's clients, so there's you know
Speaker 2: he's coming in. You have a middleman who's desperate for
Speaker 2: cash and sees endless opportunities. Eric Non is basically an
Speaker 2: ATM machine, right. You have a guy who's sort of Adam,
Speaker 2: who's sort of fantasized about becoming a hitman his whole life,
Speaker 2: who now has a perfect opportunity to live out his fantasies.
Speaker 2: And Eric, a rich guy who wants to keep his
Speaker 2: secret secret and Holly kind of walks into this storm
Speaker 2: and it's just got a collateral damage. We've seen a
Speaker 2: lot of the texts between her and Bill in the
Speaker 2: week's leading up to this. There's no indication, I mean,
Speaker 2: she was trying to get rid of him. In fact,
Speaker 2: she was about to go to the courthouse and give
Speaker 2: more testimony about things he had done that would put
Speaker 2: Bill in prison.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: I think her exact words were in the in one
Speaker 2: of the texts you in court, motherfucker.
Speaker 1: Poor Holly. I mean, a tumultuous existence. It sounds like
Speaker 1: I mean so ultimately.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I find so confusing about
Speaker 1: this story is I keep coming back to the twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars, just what a not a big deal
Speaker 1: this was. But you know what, Paul Hole's on Barry
Speaker 1: Bones and I talk about this all the time, where
Speaker 1: we say, boy, you know, nobody would kill someone over this,
Speaker 1: and Paul always says, it doesn't matter what you think,
Speaker 1: it's the perception of that person. And as you keep
Speaker 1: coming back to, it's not the twenty five thousand for him,
Speaker 1: it's the you know, humiliation or the Lord knows whatever
Speaker 1: is in Eric Mohm's mind, but it doesn't matter because
Speaker 1: that's what he thought was the appropriate reaction. So now
Speaker 1: he's sitting in jail over twenty five thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: you know, and murdering two people he barely knew and
Speaker 1: what he didn't know at all, And that's just awful, awful.
Speaker 2: I think it's to me, it's the escalation of things
Speaker 2: getting out of control and how slippery it gets after
Speaker 2: a certain point. You know, if you keep saying, yes,
Speaker 2: let's keep going down this road and yes, and you're panicking,
Speaker 2: and you can kind of feel this moment approaching and
Speaker 2: it feels like there is nobody in their right mind
Speaker 2: around to stop it. Yeah, the only people who could
Speaker 2: have stopped it left town.
Speaker 1: Well, it's normalized. It's being more normalized. The more they
Speaker 1: talk about the surveillance. It's like stalking, you know, peeping tom.
Speaker 1: It all escalates into something worse. So what a story.
Speaker 1: And I will say, I mean, aside from feeling I
Speaker 1: don't feel as bad for Bill obviously as I do
Speaker 1: for Holly, but I feel particularly terrible for his eric's
Speaker 1: adult children and his ex wife. I mean, and I
Speaker 1: guess his father too. I mean, that must just be
Speaker 1: really differ. Do you think that this has had any
Speaker 1: kind of impact on the dealership, which I know people
Speaker 1: are going to think it's silly, but Charles Monteyute has
Speaker 1: been around forever. I mean, it's an institution. Did it
Speaker 1: get any kind of blowback? Do you think?
Speaker 2: Oh? For sure. In the months after the arrests, the
Speaker 2: Monts had to sell their car business to a fortune
Speaker 2: three hundred company whoa The amount was undisclosed. But yeah,
Speaker 2: another dealer, former dealer in town, told us that there's
Speaker 2: a clause in a lot of these agreements that local
Speaker 2: dealerships have with the company, and if you get into
Speaker 2: some kind of jam like this, you're done.
Speaker 1: So that was because of this, I mean that's.
Speaker 2: The family has not said that, and there's no paperwork
Speaker 2: to say that, but a dealer who knows family and
Speaker 2: has enough experience in this that it's definitely something to consider.
Speaker 1: Wow, oh boy, what a story. And you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know it was an Austin story, and I know
Speaker 1: had been kicking around for several years. And you know,
Speaker 1: something that happens in the middle of the pandemic, which
Speaker 1: throws so much stuff off and slows investigations, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Well, and if there's a time to you know,
Speaker 2: sit tight and be quiet, which Eric had to do
Speaker 2: of course, and then months after the murder it would
Speaker 2: have been that time, Like, there's no better time to
Speaker 2: keep from acting suspicious. I mean, who knows, if you know,
Speaker 2: people see you out and about in the world in
Speaker 2: the months, in the weeks after something like this, maybe
Speaker 2: you are rattled or you look you know, look different.
Speaker 2: But when we started asking around people in Austin, you know,
Speaker 2: how did his behavior change? The response was it was
Speaker 2: the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we all changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. He was in his living room
Speaker 2: like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What do you think the lesson learned is from
Speaker 1: all of this, Katie? Do you I mean, is there
Speaker 1: any takeaway aside from I mean just the obvious, which
Speaker 1: is murder for hire is an awful life, conspiracy is
Speaker 1: and awful idea. We've talked about privilege, is that kind
Speaker 1: of what it boils down to people thinking that they
Speaker 1: can do whatever the hell they want because of the
Speaker 1: way they grew up.
Speaker 2: It's a big part of it, certainly a big part
Speaker 2: of it. And then again, how in some situations there's
Speaker 2: these sort of trains racing towards each other, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it just seems like there's very little you can do
Speaker 2: to stop it.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi.
Speaker 1: Associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed by
Speaker 1: John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer.
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