Illustration by Hokyoung Kim
A spoiled heir to an auto-dealership empire responded to a blackmail attempt by ordering two murders. Four years and a jury trial later, what motivated his ruinous decision remains a mystery.
The latest true crime series from Texas Monthly tells the story of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by an executive at one of Austin's best-known car dealerships.
Erik Maund had it all. A wife and kids, a mansion, and an executive position with his family’s car dealership. Then a message from a stranger put everything at risk.
When Bill Lanway learned his girlfriend Holly Williams was an escort, he reacted with jealousy and violence. The scheme he hatched next put them both in peril.
Executive editor Skip Hollandsworth revisits his 2001 feature about a Houston investigator who posed as a killer for hire.
In the billion-dollar business of drug trafficking, Amado Carrillo Fuentes is king. He's the elusive ringleader of a smuggling operation that police are powerless to stop.
Kerry Max Cook did everything to clear his name of a horrifying murder. So when he was finally exonerated, why did he ask for his conviction back?
An elusive bandit was sneaking into glitzy mansions and making off with millions in jewels from some of the richest people in the world. With the FBI on his tail, could he get away with the perfect crime? An exclusive excerpt from ‘The King of Diamonds.’
In a year-long spree that began in late 1884, Texas’ first serial killer butchered seven women and one man in Austin. More than a century later questions about his identity and his motive remain unanswered.
Today’s desperadoes are in the bays of the Texas coast, roping redfish and cursing the Parks and Wildlife Department.
Erik Maund had it all. Then came a perfect storm of secrets, mistaken identities, and tragic miscommunications that left two people dead.
The latest true crime series from Texas Monthly tells the story of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by an executive at one of Austin's best-known car dealerships.
Erik Maund had it all. A wife and kids, a mansion, and an executive position with his family’s car dealership. Then a message from a stranger put everything at risk.
When Bill Lanway learned his girlfriend Holly Williams was an escort, he reacted with jealousy and violence. The scheme he hatched next put them both in peril.
Facing a threat to his reputation, Erik Maund turns to his car dealership’s security guy, Gil Peled, who claimed to be an Israeli special forces veteran—and really was Charlie Sheen’s former bodyguard.
B-roll footage courtesy of WarnerMedia/HBO Max
Behind the Scenes
Urban refugees fleeing high-tech Dallas have created ersatz rural communities in the nearby countryside. This isolated, pastoral life sometimes erupts into adultery and murder.
Candy Montgomery thought her affair with Allan Gore was over, until she found herself fighting for her life against Allan’s wife.
HBO Max turned my house into that of Candy Montgomery, played by Elizabeth Olsen. Then things got hyperreal.
Facing a threat to his reputation, Erik Maund turns to his car dealership’s security guy, Gil Peled, who claimed to be an Israeli special forces veteran—and really was Charlie Sheen’s former bodyguard.
When Bill Lanway learned his girlfriend Holly Williams was an escort, he reacted with jealousy and violence. The scheme he hatched next put them both in peril.
Erik Maund had it all. A wife and kids, a mansion, and an executive position with his family’s car dealership. Then a message from a stranger put everything at risk.
Host Katy Vine and producer Ana Worrel investigate a murder-for-hire plot arranged by an executive of a well-known Austin car dealership.
The latest true crime series from Texas Monthly tells the story of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by an executive at one of Austin's best-known car dealerships.
A spoiled heir to an auto-dealership empire responded to a blackmail attempt by ordering two murders. Four years and a jury trial later, what motivated his ruinous decision remains a mystery.
Executive editor Skip Hollandsworth revisits his 2001 feature about a Houston investigator who posed as a killer for hire.
As the podcast series comes to a close, hosts Rob D’Amico and Karen Jacobs reflect on what we’ve learned.
A series of unsolved attacks presents a new theory, and investigators weigh the possibility of police involvement.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Especially in the case of the dance-team mom who kidnapped a Kilgore Rangerette.
Hosts Rob D’Amico and Karen Jacobs discuss a mysterious piece of evidence from the crime scene.
We hear from the last of the main suspects in the case, Heath Davis, who was known in the eighties as one of the toughest guys in San Angelo.
Hosts Karen Jacobs and Rob D’Amico dig further into the suspect list, which leads them all the way to the Philippines.
The investigation heads to the Philippines in search of Jimmy Burnett, a major suspect who evaded authorities for years.
Hosts Rob D’Amico and Karen Jacobs examine a key suspect and discuss the challenge of reporting on individuals connected to the murder investigation.
A rumored satanic “high priest,” and a teenager who seemed to know too much about the events at the lake, become suspects in the murder investigation.
An elusive bandit was sneaking into glitzy mansions and making off with millions in jewels from some of the richest people in the world. With the FBI on his tail, could he get away with the perfect crime? An exclusive excerpt from ‘The King of Diamonds.’
Hosts Karen Jacobs and Rob D’Amico discuss the challenge of assembling a story using the evidence from the crime scene.
Investigators walk through their initial work after Shane and Sally went missing, and their ongoing search for clues after 35 years.
Learn more about the case with original videos, archival photos, and documents from our reporting.
If you’d like to share thoughts about the podcast, or about the murders of Shane Stewart and Sally McNelly, let us know here.
Shane Stewart and Sally McNelly went missing during the height of the nation’s “Satanic panic,” and hosts Karen Jacobs and Rob D’Amico discuss the impact of the cult obsession.
In this episode, friends and family remember Shane and Sally, and describe troubling warning signs in the weeks before their disappearance.
Podcast hosts Rob D’Amico and Karen Jacobs dive deeper into questions surrounding the abandoned car the night Shane Stewart and Sally McNelly went missing.
In the first episode of this Texas Monthly true crime podcast, two teenagers go missing and a father goes searching for answers.
Marshall Stewart has been searching San Angelo for 35 years, looking for answers that might never come: Who murdered his teenage son, Shane, along with his girlfriend, Sally McNelly, in 1988? And why?
Coming March 19—Rob D’Amico and Karen Jacobs investigate the cold-case murder of two San Angelo teenagers during the height of the nation’s “Satanic panic.”
Alligator snapping turtle populations in Texas were dwindling. One family of smugglers had been poaching them from the state for years.
On the series finale, a killer builds his new life on borrowed time, and people in Stephenville must confront a difficult truth.
In his own words, the man who killed Susan Woods looks back on the choices he says led him to become a "monster."
A 16-year-old assault survivor tells investigators of her attacker's chilling confession.
Armed with new forensic technology, Don Miller takes up the case and gets a break — one that raises even more questions about what happened to Susan Woods.
That left the real culprit free to prey on others, including one victim who was ignored for two decades.
One thousand miles from Stephenville, a cloud of suspicion settles over one man.
In the first episode of the Texas Monthly true crime podcast, a father makes a tragic discovery, and an investigator gets to work.
Ortiz was found guilty of capital murder this week. In 2019, Texas Monthly reported on the string of murders targeting sex workers in Laredo.
A new Netflix docuseries revisits the string of murders near League City. Texas Monthly interviewed Abel in 1999.
Austin attorney Jamie Balagia, a.k.a. “the Dude,” thought that he’d finally hit the big time. Then everything fell apart.
A man approached Cecilia Ballí and asked, “Are you looking for work?” It shook her—and helped her grasp the danger in early-aughts Juárez.
The writer looks back on his 1998 reporting on an unforgettable murder plot that inspired the 2011 Richard Linklater film ‘Bernie.’
McCurley was living a quiet life in Fort Worth when new DNA evidence linked him to the notorious crime. Police suspect it wasn’t his first murder—or his last.
Luci Zahray is an expert on poison and is a consultant to mystery writers around the world.
Greg Curtis’s first story about Sam Corey was supposed to be a colorful human interest piece, but in some ways it was actually the beginning of a heinous murder.
Pediatric nurse Genene Jones may have murdered "up to sixty" babies in the 1980s. It took three more decades to ensure she'd stay locked up for life.
What pushed an East Texas mother to kidnap at gunpoint the director of the famed college drill team and her nineteen-year-old daughter?
“I’ll never lose that hope. It could be five years from today. The door is always open at our office for anything that will bring resolution to this case.”
In “the trial of the century,” a Houston socialite was accused of plotting her husband's murder—and of having an affair with her nephew. But Candace Mossler was only getting started.
Since 1980, police and an army of amateur sleuths have puzzled over the East Texas cold case. New forensic DNA techniques have finally given a name to the teenage girl whose brutal murder has haunted so many for so long.
A shoot-out at a Big Bend ranch captured the nation’s attention: first as an alleged ambush by undocumented migrants, then as a fear-mongering hoax. The real story is much more mysterious.
The sheriff blames his death on a big cat—but animal experts aren’t buying that theory.
