Gabbie Gonzalez, Her Father, and Her Ex All Allegedly Plotted to Kill Jack Avery
Gabbie Gonzalez, Her Father, and Her Ex All Allegedly Plotted to Kill Jack Avery.
The Alleged Motive: It Was Cheaper Than the Custody Battle.
TikTok influencer Gabbie Gonzalez, her father — a Florida attorney — and her ex-boyfriend have been charged with conspiracy to murder Why Don't We singer Jack Avery, the father of their seven-year-old daughter. The alleged method: a hitman hired off the dark web. The alleged payment: $14,000. The alleged motive, per a witness quoted in court documents: it would be "cheaper if Avery were dead."
- Gabbie Gonzalez, 24, TikTok and Instagram influencer with nearly 1 million combined followers, has been charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder.
- Francisco Gonzalez, 59 — Gabbie's father and a Florida attorney — has been arrested in Florida and is awaiting extradition to Los Angeles on the same charges.
- Kai Faron Cordrey — Gabbie's ex-boyfriend from Hawaii — allegedly acted as the middleman and faces the same felony charges. All three face 25 years to life.
- The alleged target: Jack Avery, 26 — former member of the boy band Why Don't We and father of their 7-year-old daughter, Lavender.
- The alleged motive: a bitter custody dispute — the kind that reveals things about people that no family court was designed to handle. A witness told investigators Francisco said it would be "cheaper if Avery were dead" than to continue the custody battle.
- The alleged method: Cordrey was sent to hire a hitman on the dark web — the same infrastructure that has appeared in a growing number of cases where online access enables real-world violence. Francisco allegedly wired $14,000 in payments. An undercover FBI agent posed as the hitman.
- The alleged plan: Avery was to be killed in the LA area and the murder was to "be made to look like a car accident."
- The plot allegedly dates to 2020–2021 but charges were filed May 19, 2026 following a lengthy FBI investigation.
- Gabbie was arrested while boarding a flight in Humboldt County, California. She is held with no bail. Her arraignment was continued to Thursday.
We need to pause on one detail before anything else: the alleged motive is that killing Jack Avery would be cheaper than continuing the custody battle. Not rage. Not obsession. Not a crime of passion. The cold, transactional calculation that a human life was an expense to be optimised. A Florida attorney allegedly ran the numbers on his grandchild's father and concluded murder was the more cost-effective exit. For context on how family systems produce catastrophic decisions — this is the advanced class. That is the sentence this story is built around. That is the sentence that makes this something other than a celebrity news story.
It is also the sentence that makes this one of the most disturbing things to emerge from the influencer-to-true-crime pipeline in recent memory. If you need a reference point: Kouri Richins poisoned her husband and then wrote a children's book about grief. That pipeline has been busy.
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, EXACTLY
Gabbie Gonzalez — full name Gabriela Gonzalez — built an audience of nearly half a million on both TikTok and Instagram through lifestyle content, travel videos, and documentation of her daily life including motherhood. The kind of creator where the content and the life are supposed to be the same thing — until the life turns out to be considerably more alarming than the content. She and Jack Avery share a daughter named Lavender, now seven years old. By all public accounts, the co-parenting relationship was contentious. Jack Avery stated in court documents that the FBI warned him it was "not safe" to be around Gabbie, that he had to "manage his own fears and anxiety" every time he scheduled a visit with Lavender — which reads, frankly, like a case study from a guide on how to recognise when someone in your life is dangerous, and that two women identified as Gonzalez's friends showed up at his Southern California home banging on his door looking for the child.
Jack Avery is a singer-songwriter and former member of Why Don't We — the pop group that had a devoted fanbase, known as Limelights, through the late 2010s and early 2020s. He has 1.4 million Instagram followers. He is 26 years old. He is alive because an undercover FBI agent answered a phone call instead of an actual hitman.
Francisco Gonzalez — Gabbie's father — is a 59-year-old Florida attorney. The man who is supposed to know how the law works allegedly decided the law was too expensive and wired $14,000 to a hitman via his daughter's ex-boyfriend. He appeared in court in Seminole County, Florida, and has waived extradition to California.
THE ALLEGED TIMELINE — HOW THIS UNFOLDED
THE PART NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT ENOUGH
Lavender Avery is seven years old. She has a father who survived an alleged murder-for-hire plot. She has a mother who allegedly commissioned it. She has a grandfather who allegedly funded it. She has a family who showed up at her father's house banging on the door while, according to Jack Avery's own court statement, the FBI was warning him that being around her mother was not safe.
The custody dispute was allegedly resolved by deciding the custody dispute was worth $14,000 to end permanently. The child in the custody dispute is seven. Her name is Lavender. For sentencing context on what happens when domestic murder-for-hire plots reach their conclusion: life without parole is not an unusual outcome.
Coverage of this story will inevitably focus on the influencer accountability angle — the aesthetic gap between the lifestyle content and the alleged dark web hitman payment. That gap is real and it is jarring and it is genuinely worth writing about. But the loudest story here is a quieter one. A little girl whose parents have been in a war so bitter that one of them — and her grandfather, a lawyer who should have known better — allegedly decided the most logical exit was a car accident that wasn't an accident.
Jack Avery wrote in court documents that he kept showing up for visits with Lavender despite knowing the risk because she was "too important" to him. He managed his own fear so his daughter could see her father. That is not a celebrity detail. That is a man deciding that Lavender mattered more than his own reasonable terror. He was correct. The FBI got there first. The FBI got there first. The car accident never happened.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Gabbie Gonzalez's arraignment was continued to Thursday. She remains held with no bail. Her father Francisco is awaiting extradition to LA from Florida and is currently represented by a public defender — which is an interesting detail for a 59-year-old attorney. Kai Cordrey faces the same charges. All three face 25 years to life if convicted.
Jack Avery has not publicly commented. Why Don't We, who disbanded, have not issued a statement. Gabbie's social media accounts remained active as of publication time — which is its own particular quality of surreal.
WHO IS JACK AVERY — AND WHO ARE WHY DON'T WE
Jack Robert Avery was born July 1, 1999 in Burbank, California, and raised in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. He taught himself guitar at twelve by watching YouTube videos. By fourteen he was busking in Nashville — he earned twenty dollars in his first hour and someone asked for a photo. He posted covers online, built a following, and eventually joined four other singer-songwriters on a social media tour called Impact in 2016. That is where Why Don't We came together: Jack Avery, Corbyn Besson, Zach Herron, Jonah Marais, and Daniel Seavey — five American kids who met on the circuit and decided to form a band. Which was, as it happened, a slightly unusual thing. The late 2010s pop landscape was dominated by British acts and K-pop. An American boy band was almost an anomaly.
Why Don't We signed with Atlantic Records in 2017 and released their debut album 8 Letters in 2018, which debuted at number nine on the Billboard 200. Their fanbase — called Limelights — were devoted in the particular way that boy band fanbases are devoted: intensely, loyally, with a detailed working knowledge of each member's personal life. In 2019, Jack Avery — then nineteen years old — announced on Instagram that he had become a father. The post was long and earnest. He described Gabbie Gonzalez as "the most selfless person I have ever met in my life." He introduced his daughter: Lavender May Avery. The Limelights received it with the enthusiasm of people who had been following this person since he was learning guitar in Pennsylvania. They celebrated. They cried. They made content about it.
The band's story ended less happily. A lawsuit led to a hiatus in 2022, a cancelled tour, and the eventual loss of the rights to their own name in February 2025. Why Don't We, officially, no longer exists. Jack Avery has 1.4 million Instagram followers and a solo music career. He also has, as of this week, a temporary restraining order against his daughter's mother and an active filing for sole legal and physical custody of Lavender. His life as a public figure and his life as a father have arrived, very publicly, at the same catastrophic moment.
WHO IS KAI FARON CORDREY — THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE
Kai Faron Cordrey, 26, is a surf instructor based in Hawaii. He was born October 13, 1999 in Coronado, California. He played soccer, ran track and cross country in high school. He has 9,300 followers on Instagram — his primary account, currently private. He has a second account, @thehapaplumber, focused on plumbing content. He is not famous. He was not famous before this week. He is famous now because he allegedly used the alias "LizardKing69" on a Gemini cryptocurrency account to accept payments for a dark web hitman, hired on behalf of his then-girlfriend, to kill a boy band member he had apparently never met. This is the sentence his life currently consists of.
Cordrey is the operational centre of the alleged plot in a way that makes his role worth understanding clearly. According to prosecutors, Gabbie Gonzalez approached Cordrey — her boyfriend at the time — with the idea of hiring a hitman. Cordrey allegedly went to the dark web to find one. He allegedly supplied identifying information about Jack Avery. He allegedly accepted $10,000 from Francisco Gonzalez in April 2021 — disguised in communications as "web-development payments." He then allegedly requested an additional $4,000 when the purported hitman asked for more money. And then, in September 2021, he allegedly got on a phone call with what he believed was a hitman to discuss the target, the payment structure, and proof of death.
The person on that call was an undercover FBI agent. Cordrey allegedly told the agent that Gabriela Gonzalez wanted the murder to happen. He allegedly confirmed that Francisco Gonzalez could pay for the expense. He discussed timing. He discussed how the death should look. The word "accident" appears in the court documents. A car accident, specifically. In LA.
DA Nathan Hochman said: "Most fathers raise their children to respect the law, but here we have a dad who allegedly helped his daughter and her boyfriend break the law in the most sinister way imaginable."
Cordrey faces the same charges as the Gonzalezes: attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation of murder. Twenty-five years to life if convicted. His primary Instagram account went private after the charges were filed.
THE DARK WEB ANGLE — HOW IT ALLEGEDLY WORKED
The dark web component of this case is not incidental. It is the mechanism. And it is worth understanding because the details are more specific — and more legally significant — than most coverage has made them.
The dark web refers to encrypted online networks — most commonly accessed through the Tor browser — that are deliberately designed to obscure the identity of users and the location of servers. They host both legitimate privacy-focused services and, less legitimately, marketplaces for illegal goods and services including drugs, stolen data, and, yes, murder-for-hire services. These hitman services are almost universally scams — they take payment and disappear, or they are law enforcement stings. The FBI and other agencies have operated undercover on these networks for years. The idea that the dark web is a reliable place to source contract killers is a fantasy propagated by crime dramas and believed, apparently, by people who have not done the research. The reality is that it is where people who want to hire killers go — and where law enforcement has learned to meet them.
In this case, according to prosecutors, Cordrey used Bitcoin — routed through a Gemini cryptocurrency account under the alias LizardKing69 — to engage with what he believed was a legitimate hitman service. The money Francisco Gonzalez allegedly wired was laundered through this crypto layer to create distance between the payment and the people making it. The "web-development payments" language in the communications was presumably intended to provide cover if anyone examined the transfers. It did not work. The FBI was watching. The hitman was an agent. The call was recorded. The case was built over five years before charges were filed.
The DA's office specifically noted this was "a lengthy investigation that was initiated by the FBI and eventually turned over to our office." Five years of investigation for a plot that allegedly originated in 2020–2021. The Gonzalez family was living with the knowledge — or the hope — that the dark web hitman they had paid $14,000 had either completed the job or disappeared with the money. What they did not know was that the agent who answered had kept the evidence, built the case, and waited.
WHAT HAPPENED TO LAVENDER — WHERE IS SHE NOW
Almost no coverage has answered this directly. Here is what we know.
When Gabbie Gonzalez was arrested on May 15 in Humboldt County while boarding a flight, Lavender — who was in her care — was placed with a temporary foster family. Jack Avery learned his daughter's mother had been arrested for allegedly conspiring to murder him when a detective called him on the phone. Not in a meeting. Not through a lawyer. A detective called. He then had to process the information that his child's mother had allegedly been trying to have him killed for years, and that his seven-year-old daughter was currently in the care of strangers.
He rushed to pick Lavender up on Saturday. On Tuesday — the same day Gabbie appeared in court in a blue hoodie and handcuffs — Jack Avery filed a temporary restraining order against her and filed for sole legal and physical custody of Lavender. In his declaration, he wrote: "Gabriela attempted to kill me by hiring a hit man. Gabriela is not stable and not able to act in the best interest of our daughter." He noted that friends of Gabbie had shown up at his Southern California home demanding to know where Lavender was. He noted that the FBI had warned him it was "not safe" to be around Gabbie.
Lavender is currently with her father. The custody filing is active. A restraining order requires Gonzalez to stay at least 100 yards from Avery and their child. Given that Gonzalez is currently held without bail in a Los Angeles County jail, the restraining order is, for now, the least of the mechanisms keeping them apart.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT — THE LEGAL ROAD AHEAD
Gabbie Gonzalez's arraignment was continued to Thursday, May 22, to give her lawyers time to review the evidence. As of publication she has not entered a plea. Her attorney information was not immediately available at the time of writing.
Francisco Gonzalez waived extradition in Florida and is being transferred to Los Angeles County. He is currently represented by a public defender. Sit with that for a moment. A 59-year-old attorney — a man who has spent his career inside the legal system — facing a murder conspiracy charge and relying on a public defender. Whether this reflects his financial situation or his legal strategy, it is a notable choice for a man whose profession is knowing exactly how courts work.
Kai Cordrey's arraignment status has not been publicly confirmed as of publication time. All three defendants face 25 years to life if convicted on the attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder charges.
The custody case for Lavender will proceed separately from the criminal case but will be significantly shaped by it. Jack Avery's filing for sole custody is extremely likely to succeed given the circumstances. The question of what Lavender is told, at seven years old, and when, and by whom, is not a legal question. It is a human one. And it does not have a clean answer.
This article will be updated as the arraignment proceeds Thursday.
Custody disputes are brutal. They are expensive, emotionally catastrophic, and they reduce people who presumably once cared about each other into opposing legal positions in a room full of strangers. We get it. We are not without sympathy for the general category of "person losing their mind in a custody battle." What we cannot extend sympathy toward is the specific decision to look at the custody battle and decide that the most elegant solution is a hitman sourced from the dark web, funded by your father the attorney, coordinated through your ex-boyfriend, and designed to look like a car accident. That is not a decision made in a desperate moment. That is a plan. With a budget. With a timeline. With a phone call to a federal agent who was very much not a hitman. Somewhere a seven-year-old named Lavender is going to grow up and learn this story. That is the part that stays with you.
