The influencer is accused of trying to murder her ex-singer

Tiktok influencer Gabi Gonzalez, who is best known for her travel, lifestyle and motherhood content, was arrested last week in Northern California on suspicion of trying to hire a hitman through Darknet to murder her ex-partner and father of her daughter, Jack Avery, former singer in the American boy band Why Don’t We. According to the NME report, which is based on detention center documents obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, 24-year-old Gonzalez was booked into the Eureka Correctional Facility on Friday, May 15, and was subsequently charged in Los Angeles County. Along with her, her father, Francisco Gonzalez, and a surf instructor from Hawaii named Kai Cordray were also charged. Gabi is being held without bail.

According to the affidavit, the background is actually a long and charged custody dispute between Gonzalez and Avery over their shared daughter. According to the investigators, Gabi’s father, a lawyer from Miami, got “deep” into the custody battle, and tried to “discredit, follow Avery and take him out of the family picture.” Witnesses told investigators that Francisco said things like, “It would be cheaper if Avery just died,” and acted hostile toward the singer.

According to the indictment, Cordray came into the picture around March 2021, when Francisco began contacting him about hiring a person to threaten or harass Avery. For her part, Gabi described Avery during the custody proceedings as an “unworthy” and “dangerous” father, spoke according to the prosecution about her desire for his death, and consulted on hiring a hit man. Later, she and Cordray allegedly discussed using Darknet and Bitcoin to pull off the move, raising the possibility of staging Avery’s death as a car accident. Financial records cited in the affidavit show the father transferred $10,000 to Cordray through the Square app in 2021, a payment disguised as web development services. Cordray himself told investigators that no such work had actually been done. Later in the investigation, federal agents planted an undercover agent posing as a hit man, and Francisco spoke to him on the phone in code, including mention of previous Bitcoin payments and a salary that would be transferred after the mission was completed.

Avery himself revealed the story back in September 2025, when he was a guest on Zach Sang’s podcast. He said there that two FBI agents came to him and informed him that someone was trying to kill him. “Two agents, they suddenly appear. Someone hired someone to kill me. I never talked about it. I can’t elaborate too much,” he said. He did not name suspects publicly. When asked why someone would want his death, he replied: “To take pressure off of life. My daughter’s mother and I are in a pretty good place lately. It took us a while, but we’re making progress. She’s a 17-year-old girl, and I can only imagine how traumatic it is.” He later added that “when we broke up, we just hated each other”, and described Gonzalez as “an excellent mother, an amazing mother”, and emphasized that he had no intention of shaming her.