TikTok star charged in murder plot against Jack Avery, DA says

A Los Angeles County grand jury? Wait cannot invent. Let's craft proper article.

Gabriela Lauren Gonzalez, a 24-year-old TikTok influencer with nearly half a million followers, was charged in Los Angeles County on May 19 with attempting to arrange the killing of Jack Avery, the singer and former Why Don’t We member who is the father of her 7-year-old daughter.

Prosecutors also charged her father, Francisco Gonzalez, 59, and her then-boyfriend, Kai Faron Cordrey, with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder. The case, prosecutors say, grew out of a bitter custody dispute that unfolded between 2020 and 2021 and escalated into an alleged murder-for-hire plot centered on Avery.

According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Francisco Gonzalez sent $10,000 to Cordrey in April 2021 as front money to find, hire and pay a hit man. Two months later, prosecutors say, he sent another $4,000 after the supposed assassin requested more money. In September 2021, an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a hitman spoke with Cordrey, who allegedly identified Avery as the target, discussed payment and asked for proof of death.

Prosecutors say Cordrey later told the undercover officer that Gabriela Gonzalez wanted the killing to happen and that her father could cover the cost. District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman described the allegations as a disturbing example of a parent allegedly helping a child commit a crime. The office said the matter began as an FBI investigation before being turned over to the county district attorney’s Bureau of Investigation.

Francisco Gonzalez was arrested in Florida and was awaiting extradition. Gabriela Gonzalez was scheduled to be arraigned in Department 30 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center. If convicted as charged, all three defendants face 25 years to life in state prison.

The case has drawn attention because of Gabriela Gonzalez’s social-media profile, but prosecutors’ account is rooted in a far more serious allegation: that a custody fight over a child escalated into a documented effort to arrange a murder. In cases that involve online fame, public attention can quickly drift toward notoriety; the charges here keep the focus on the evidence investigators say they assembled, the payments they allege were made and the undercover encounter that prosecutors say helped expose the plot.