TikTok Influencer, Gabriela Gonzalez, Accused in Murder-for-Hire Plot Against Singer Jack Avery

Now part of the Dark Cast network. Welcome to indie Podcasts with a dark side. In September 2021 FBI agents showed up at, ah, 26 year old Singer Jack Avery’s home with a warning that sounded more like a movie plot and less like real life. Someone was trying to have him killed. At the time, Jack didn’t, um, publicly say who investigators believed was behind it and kept everything on the end looking relatively normal. He continued co parenting his daughter Lavender, and even spoke positively about the mother of his daughter in interviews. But behind the scenes, investigators say that they had already uncovered the beginning of a murder for hire plot connected to a bitter custody dispute. Welcome LaMs. Welcome to Love and Heartbreak to Homicide, your weekly true crime podcast telling you cases of relationships that turned to murder. I am your host Ky, and in today’s episode, I’m telling you a case of a custody battle between a TikTok influencer and the father of her child who was in a boy band that spiraled so far. And just wait until you hear who prosecutors say was behind it and the twist that completely changed the case. Before we get into it, if you’re looking for more cases, head on over to the Patreon. Patreon.com/loveandmurder because I just dropped, uh, a two in one bonus episode involving someone killing a serial killer’s child. Yeah, you heard that right. And trust me, the details are exactly as chaotic as they sound. To get this bonus and more, join the LaM Patreon fam at the $5 a month tier and above on the Patreon. You also get bonus episodes after shows like the one that will come after this case, case files like the pictures from this case and more, all while helping keep this podcast listener funded and focus on the victim’s voices. Patreon.com/loveandmurder now that we got the housekeeping all out of the way, and keep in mind that once you become part of the Lamp Fam, you don’t get any of this intro. We just get directly into the case. But anyways, let’s get back to this case of love and murder. Jack and 24 year old Gabriela Gabbie Gonzalez started dating between February 2019 and mid 2019. It didn’t really give a date. So just mid while Jack’s music career was taken off after his success with the boy band called why don’t we. Has anybody heard of that boy band? Because I’ve never heard of them. Maybe it’s because I’m old, I don’t know. But have you heard of them before? All of this Gabbie had her own growing online platform with over 469,000 followers posting lifestyle content, surfing videos, travel pictures and motherhood posts. Her Instagram bio described her as a, quote, lover of life and a mermaid at heart. She first caught the public’s attention when she got into the relationship with Jack. Their daughter, Lavender Avery, was born in April 2019. But the relationship between Jack and Gabbie didn’t last long. The two split some months later and the problem between them centered around a heated custody dispute involving Lavender. Court documents show Gabbie described Jack as a, quote, dangerous and incapable father and was also frustrated with the family court process, quote, to encourage or justify efforts to remove Jack Avery from Lavender A’s life. Authorities also say that Gabbie’s father, 59 year old Francisco Javier Gonzalez, became heavily invested in removing Jack from Lavender’s life completely. One witness told investigators that Francisco once said, quote, it would be cheaper if Jack were dead. Francisco first focused on trying to gather damaging information about Jack while he was living in Kauai, Hawaii. May have said that wrong. Don’t know if I did. Please tell me in the comments below he hired a private investigator in hopes of getting photos or videos of Jack either drinking or smoking or both that could potentially be used against him during custody proceedings. Now, since when has that been looked at as bad in the US Court for custody proceedings? I mean, I guess unless he’s smoking crack, you know, or, uh, coming home blackout drunk every night and then, I don’t know, strangling somebody that’s in the room. Since when would that help you in your custody battle in the US Court? I can’t speak for other courts, but in the US Court, that’s not going to help you in your custody battle. Investigators later said that Francisco was upset, obsessed with obtaining full custody of Lavender. But when that strategy didn’t work, things escalated. At first the focus was intimidation and surveillance, something that could actually be against you in a, uh, custody battle. Then in March 2021, Francisco sent a message to a family group chat that read, quote, call Barca never too early. According to investigators, he was referring to former MMA fighter Dustin Barca, Gabbie and her then boyfriend, 26 year old Kai Farron Cordry, no relations, approached Dustin about threatening Jack. But Justin was like, hell no, I’m not getting involved in this. But instead of thinking, hey, you know what? An MMA fighter said that he’s not getting involved in this. Maybe we should just, you know, stop what we’re doing. Gabbie and Kai started looking into hiring someone on the Dark Web, uh, to kill Jack. Someplace you will never find me. I will never even step an, uh, IP address’s toe into the dark web. Investigators said that the goal wasn’t just murder. They wanted Jack’s death so staged to look like a car accident in Los Angeles so it wouldn’t immediately raise suspicion. I mean, not immediately, but I guess later on down the line. What? Kai again, no relations. Made a murder for hire account using the username Lizard King69, which already sounds like somebody making terrible life decisions. In April 2021, Francisco sent Kai $10,000 through Square disguised as payments for we, uh, services. But this was actually the front money intended to be used in locating and hiring a hitman. After receiving the funds, Kai transferred the money into two separate $5,000 sums into a Gemini cryptocurrency account to be converted into Bitcoin for the hit. In September 2021, a hitman answered the post and started communicating with Kai about the murder plot. On September 19, they got on the phone, and Kai identified Jack as the target, Gave Jack’s address, dam and other identifying information. I mean, I don’t know why that shocked me that they gave Jack’s, uh, address. They’re looking for somebody to kill Jack. So they also discussed payment arrangement as well as proof of death. In another conversation, Kai said that Gabbie wanted the murder carried out and that her father could pay for it. They also talked about ways to kill Jack without raising suspicion, including the aforementioned plan that I told you, like staging a car accident. Two months later, another $4,000 was sent after the hitman requested more money. Only days after that, Kai requested that Jack be killed within a couple of days and that the killing did not need to be accomplished in any special way. At one point, Kai requested that the hitman provide Jack’s severed finger with jewelry still attached as proof that the murder had been completed. That is a diabolically, um, insane level of hatred, uh, over a custody dispute. Now, unbeknownst to Kai, Gabbie, and Francisco, the hitman they thought they were talking to was actually, you guessed it, an undercover federal agent. See, this is why I couldn’t be a bad guy. The amount of paranoia I would have revolving around in my head constantly would be immeasurable. Do you hear me? There’s no way I couldn’t be a bad guy. I just. I couldn’t do it. Years later, the investigation finally became public. Investigators uncovered encrypted signal messages between Kai and someone identified as Fran G. Wonder who that is. Authorities say the two used the code word bull run while discussing the progress of the murder plot. Man, these two are just like elite level spies, you know what I’m saying? Frangie would never guess that meant Francisco Gonzalez. Never. Like, would you ever guess that? And then code word bull run, uh, elite level spy activity, I’m telling you. According to prosecutors, Francisco didn’t just fund the operation. He also directly communicated with the undercover agent about, quote, payment accountability after completion. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hodgman said in a statement, quote, this is a case where the defendants are accused of going to great lengths to find someone to commit murder. 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. He also described the investigation as, uh, lengthy and noted that it originally began with the FBI before eventually being handed over to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Major crimes division. On May 18, 2026, Gabbie was arrested in Humboldt County, California, while preparing to board a flight. Francisco was arrested the same day in Florida on a fugitive warrant and now faces extradition to California. Kai was also charged in connection to the conspiracy, though reports said that he had not yet been detained at the time. The charges were. Kai later admitted that that explanation of the web development payments was fake and that he had actually never done any web development work. No, really. Records also showed that the other $4,000 transfer connected to a website called SiteWhisperer. The next day, on May 19, Gabbie appeared in Los Angeles county superiors court and was initially held without bail. Though, uh, for some reason I just can’t fathom, prosecutors recommended bail be set at $2 million for each defendant. After the arrests, Jack filed for domestic violence restraining order and requested sole legal and physical custody of Lavender. So your plan didn’t go according to plan and instead it backfired. And the person that you didn’t want to have any custody of your child? Well, uh, of Yalls now has complete custody or probably will have complete custody of Yalls child. Brilliant. According to the filings, Lavender was temporarily placed with a foster family in Northern California following Gabbie’s arrest, before Jack traveled to pick her up himself. He later asked the court to prevent Gabbie from having visitation while the case moves forward. Forward. So Gabbie and Francisco are just not even going to be able, if this is granted, to see Lavender at all. At all. At all. Did your plan go the way you wanted it to? In those court filings, Jack wrote, quote, the acts of abuse described in the attached declaration have taken place in front of the minor child. Gabriela attempted to kill me by hiring a hitman. Gabriela is not stable and not able to act in the best interest of our child. He also stated that the situation caused him, quote, fear of death, chronic anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder. At one point, Jack also described how badly the FBI’s warning affected him, saying, quote, I stayed in my house for a month straight. I didn’t leave. I was so scared, looking out my window every night. Like, how would you react, FBI? You just living your life, right? You’re just going to grocery store, I don’t know, working, coming home, blah, blah, blah. One day FBI shows up at your door and is like, hey, somebody’s trying to kill you. What are you going to do? What would you do? How would that make you feel? You know what I’m saying? Then you find out that the person is trying to kill you is a person you once loved and have a kid with. Like, could you even wrap your head around that? As of now, Gabbie Francisco and Kai are, uh, facing charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and solicitation of murder. Prosecutors say they could each face up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted. And one of the strangest parts of this case is how normal everything looked online. While prosecutions say that all of this was happening in the background, while investigators say there were conversations about hitmen, staged accidents and payments moving around behind the scene, Gabbie’s social media was still full of beach photos, family content, and videos talking about heartbreak and Taylor Swift lyrics like nothing was wrong. Meanwhile, according to prosecutors, the father of her child was being warned by the FBI that, uh, someone wanted him dead. Now, before I recorded this, I did check for any updates, and there were a couple. First of all, like I said before, for some reason, the prosecution wanted them on a $2 million bond each. Well, Gabriela was able to post bond and she’s, uh, actually out. And part of being the LAMFAM member is that you do get case extras. So with this case, you do get, um, pictures of Gabbie’s social media. Um, I’ll also give you the social media handles so you can go look for yourself. Um, there’s also pictures of everyone involved in this case, and there is video of Gabbie leaving the court. So that’s going to be in the Patreon as part of the case extras. Patreon.com/loveandmurder and the other update that I found was that Jack posted on his Twitter talking about this situation, saying, quote, a few days ago, Three individuals were arrested in connection with an alleged plot to kill me. One of those individuals is the mother of my daughter. For years, my family and I have endured intense public scrutiny, false accusations, and deeply painful attacks on our character and reputation. Throughout that time, I chose to remain silent out of respect for the legal process and most importantly, for my daughter. Right now, my focus is on being the best father I can be. I’m thankful to have sole custody of my daughter, Lavender, who is safe, healthy, and deeply loved. I look forward to continuing to build a peaceful and stable life for her. I also want to express my sincere gratitude to my family, friends, law enforcement, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for their support throughout this process. And finally, to everyone who has supported me and withheld judgment while the truth unfolded. Thank you. Always seek the truth. Jack Avery. And then he had a picture of him holding Lavender. And I read the comments, and it seemed like there were people who knew him in the comments, and they were saying that, uh, even after all of this came out, nobody could understand the level of disrespect, stress, and just everything that he went through on the back end. So that’s what some of the comments in that thread were saying. So please remember that this case is still ongoing, so everything said here is alleged. Cause I ain’t trying to be sued. Now, I want to ask you, what is the craziest part of this case, in your opinion? Was it the murder for hire plot itself, which is pretty freaking crazy? Was it the undercover agent twist or the fact that everything looked completely normal online while this was happening on the back end? Like, when you see her Instagram, it just looks like, you know, uh, I don’t know, an aesthetic Instagram of a woman who loves her family and goes traveling and raises her hand with the beach in front of her and the blue skies, and her hands are raised and she’s in a bikini? You know what I’m talking about. That’s what her social media looks like. In the meantime, she is plotting to have the father of her child killed. Can you imagine that? So, with that in mind, one thing this case should remind you of is that social media is not real life. People post beach trips, smiling family photos, relationship videos, cute captions, and perfect moments, while completely different things might be happening behind closed doors. If this isn’t an example of blaring oh, my God. Example. I just. I don’t know what what is. You can scroll through someone’s page and think they have the perfect relationship, perfect family, perfect life. You’re sitting there hating on them. Why don’t I have this? Oh, some people have all the fun, some people have all the relationships. Some people have everything. Meanwhile, there could be cheating, abuse, addiction, manipulation, custody battles, or in extreme cases such as this one, even violence and murder plots happening in the background. Social media is usually the edited version people want the world to see. Social media is business. It’s about branding, about image control, about highlights, and sometimes is the people who look the happiest online who are struggling the most offline. That’s why I don’t compare my life to somebody else’s curated Internet life. Even in business. It’s something that I had to learn. I’ve watched podcasts who started at the exact same time I did, who are now pulling numbers that I can only wish to do. But I had to realize after some time, of course I had to work on myself and realize that I was in a different boat than them and to stop wishing for what they had. I need to look at my situation, stay in my lane and work towards my goals. Instead of being jealous, I’ve turned that into being happy for them. And the inspirational push for me to continue working hard. And even if I actually never attained that level of success, I mean, at least I tried. So that’s all I have to say on that. And thank you for coming to my TED Talk. So let me know your thoughts in the comments below. And before you go, make sure you follow my newly monetized Facebook page for the podcast for even more true crime cases and updates. You can catch the link in the show notes below or you can just search Facebook for Love and Heartbreak to Homicide. The direct URL is uh, facebook.com/relationshipcrimes One of the easiest and free ways to support the podcast now is by simply watching the videos, commenting and sharing them. Seriously, like every watch, comment and share helps push the cases further and helps more people hear these stories, which is still helping money come in for the podcast. Don’t forget that although my main goal is getting the victim’s stories out there, this is still a full time job for me. I still have to pay my mortgage, utilities, food, etc. To be able to tell these stories. So go ahead and just follow me on the Facebook page. Love and Heartbreak to Homicide. So thank you for being here. Thank you for listening and for caring about these stories. And as I end each episode, I want to remind you that it’s say it with me now. Let’s do it from the chest. All, uh, love and no murder. Y’ All. And if you’re part of the LaM fam, stay tuned for the upcoming after show. Bye. M. Hey lambs. And welcome to today’s after show where I tell you a case about a father who came home from his much needed vacation only to find out that his daughter had murdered a man in his house. Did you hear me? So let’s get right on into it. On July 18, 2024, a, uh, 911 call came into the Burnsville Police from a 25 year old woman named Josephine Ann Powers. She told dispatchers that a man had been shot and killed inside her father’s home about nine or 10 days earlier while her father had been away on a two week vacation. Wait a second. So as a dispatcher, my question would have been like, wait a second, did you say nine or ten days earlier and you’re just now calling us? She also told the dispatcher that a male friend had helped her pull the trigger, which how were you both holding the gun together? Like, I don’t, I don’t understand how somebody helps you pull a trigger. But you know what happened. Investigators did what investigators do. They investigated. And the more they looked into what happened inside the house, the less Josephine’s story made sense. Which is crazy because in just that little bit, I told you already, it didn’t make much sense at all. Thank you for joining me, LaMs. If you want to hear the rest of this after show, more episodes, more after shows and all the bonuses that I have in the Patreon, then go ahead and join the patreon. Patreon.com/loveandmurder the after shows are at the $3 tear and above. But if you want bonus episodes like that one that I just put out, that was a two in one, the serial Somebody Killed the Serial Killer’s Kid, then you can join bonus episodes start at the $5 tiers or above. The higher the tier, the more bonus episodes you get. Patreon.com/LoveAndMurder thanks for joining by.

Since you listened to this case, maybe you’d be interested in:

The Black Swan Murder Trial | Love, Abuse, and a Deadly Custody Battle | Ashley Benefield
https://murderandlove.com/the-black-swan-murder-trial-love-abuse-and-a-deadly-custody-battle-ashley-benefield/

Midweek Mini | Woman Murdered Son Over Custody Battle with Her Mom plus a Shocking Update | Janet Garcia
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911 Call Reported Suicide, But Investigators Saw Something Else | Heather Hicks Auman Case
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Sources: (what the sources say)

https://www.mensjournal.com/news/pop-singer-breaks-silence-on-murder-for-hire-plot-against-him

https://lawandcrime.com/crime/dad-came-home-from-vacation-to-find-out-his-daughter-killed-a-man-at-his-house-and-got-someone-to-clean-up-the-mess/

https://kstp.com/kstp-news/local-news/burnsville-woman-sentenced-to-over-21-years-for-fatally-shooting-man-recruiting-accomplice-to-hide-body/

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/burnsville-woman-sentenced-for-killing-70-year-old-man-in-her-fathers-home

https://lawandcrime.com/crime/daughter-shot-a-man-in-the-head-while-dad-was-on-vacation-because-he-was-f-ing-with-her-and-she-could-not-take-it-anymore-complaint/