The father of slain high school football standout Austin Metcalf has criticized the parents of his son’s killer, accusing them of failing to take responsibility in the closely watched case.
Jeff Metcalf, whose 17-year-old son Austin was killed, directed sharp remarks at the family and supporters of Karmelo Anthony, 19, during an interview with Fox News host Will Cain, saying they have not reached out to him at any point since his son’s death.
Metcalf said that after Anthony was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison earlier this month, he had hoped to speak with Anthony’s family, but said they kept their distance.
“Their son made a horrible mistake,” Metcalf said. “I was hoping for some accountability, maybe, and some remorse. Neither one was shown.”
He told Cain he had not spoken with Anthony’s family during any stage of the proceedings. Asked whether they had expressed remorse or offered any apology to his family, Metcalf replied: “Nothing.”
Metcalf also said Anthony’s relatives were absent for key moments in court. “They weren’t there for the sentencing, and they were not there for victim impact statements,” he said.
“They left that poor child up there by himself,” Metcalf added. “As soon as the verdict was read … his family and some other advocates left the courtroom and turned in their badges.”
Anthony has since filed an appeal of his conviction in connection with the April 2025 killing at a high school track meet in Fresno, Texas.
Jeff Metcalf, the father of slain Texas high school football star Austin Metcalf, slammed the parents of his son’s killer for cowardly avoiding accountability in the high-profile case
Austin Metcalf, 17, was stabbed in the heart at a track meet in Fresno, Texas in April 2025 by Karmelo Anthony following a brief argument
Anthony, 19, was found guilty earlier this month of Metcalf’s April 2025 murder
The case divided America as race became a central issue of the trial, with supporters of Anthony claiming he was unfairly prosecuted because he is black and criticized that there were no black jurors.
But the Metcalf family repeatedly insisted that race had no bearing on the case, and disputed Anthony’s claim that he acted in self-defense when he stabbed Austin in the heart at the track meet.
In his emotional interview with Cain this week, Metcalf slammed media figures such as The View’s Sunny Hostin for politicizing the case, saying man chimed in while having ‘no idea’ about the facts of the trial.
Metcalf said he sees the hostile response to the case as evidence of a ‘moray decal in society’, as he hit out at those who have spewed ‘multiple lies and mistruths’ about his son’s murder.
‘People had their own opinions without even seeing the facts, and that’s the part I have trouble with,’ he said.
‘Unfortunately, in today’s moral decay of society that we’ve witnessed, people believe that if they have their own voice, they scream loud enough, they’re right,’ he continued.
When asked to respond to Hostin’s insistence the jury should have ruled Anthony acted in self-defense, Jeff said she has no idea what she’s talking about.
‘They don’t know me. They don’t know Hunter, Austin. They don’t know Karmelo. They’re looking for their 15 minutes of fame or their clickbait,’ the heartbroken father claimed.
‘They’re looking to monetize the death of my son,’ he added. ‘I really wish they wouldn’t speak about it at all.’
Jeff Metcalf slammed the politicization of his son Austin’s murder by those who have ‘no idea on the facts of the case’
Speaking specifically of Hostin, Jeff then declared that ‘she has no idea on the facts of the case, but she wants to spew her public opinion on a platform that reaches millions of people everyday.
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‘She is completely wrong,’ he asserted. ‘And if they want [to] take me in, call me, ask them to be on The View with them, I would gladly – fly me up there and let me talk to all of you.’
In the meantime, Jeff said he hopes newly-released footage from the stabbing in Frisco, Texas showing Anthony confronting Metcalf inside his tent, the fatal blow and Anthony running away in the aftermath will ‘clear up a lot of the misinformation that was provided throughout the entire year before the trial came to light.’
The heartbreaking footage also caught the moments after police arrived on the scene, when officers handcuffed Anthony – and he corrected a cop who referred to him as an ‘alleged suspect.’
‘I’m not alleged. I did it,’ Anthony could be heard saying in the footage.
In another clip, Anthony sounded as if he were sobbing as he was escorted from the scene.
‘He put his hands on me,’ the killer claimed. ‘I told him not to. He put his hands on me.’
At the trial, Anthony and his lawyers claimed he stabbed Metcalf in an act of self-defense after they got into a confrontation during a rain delay at the sporting event.
They also implied that Metcalf may have impaled himself on the knife.
But prosecutors destroyed the self-defense claim with video evidence and witness testimony.
Witnesses at the trial described how Anthony entered another team’s tent and provoked Metcalf before he pulled a knife on the teenager
Anthony is pictured being arrested at the scene of the track meet on April 2, 2025
Witnesses said Anthony was the aggressor, testifying how he entered the other team’s tent that day and told Metcalf: ‘Touch me and see what happens,’ provoking Metcalf to push Anthony, who then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.
The knife pierced through his bone in the center of his chest and punctured the right side of his heart, a medical examiner testified.
Prosecutors said Metcalf’s twin brother, Hunter, rushed to his aid as Anthony ran from the scene and later tried to blend into groups of kids who were exiting the stadium.
Jeff Metcalf has repeatedly denied that race was a factor, noting in the interview with Will Cain on Monday that half the members of Metcalf’s football team were black.
‘I don’t care what color you are, I want to judge you [on] how you treat people, what’s your character like,’ he said. ‘Your color makes no difference, it doesn’t determine your IQ, it doesn’t determine your faith, it doesn’t determine how much money you have. But your character shows who you are truly and that’s how I judge people.’
‘For a person to not able to objectively look at something, use common logic, common sense, to come to a determination just based on merely the facts, not the color of one’s skin,’ Jeff added. ‘That tells me a whole lot about your character if you choose that direction.’
The grieving father even claimed he noticed a ‘turning point’ in the days after his son was killed, when he was kicked out of Anthony’s parent’s press conference.
Jeff Metcalf was kicked out of a press conference Anthony’s parents gave in the days following the fatal stabbing
He said he showed up to pray with Anthony’s family, to ‘show this wasn’t a racial divide [and] that we can kind of close the gap rather than widening it.’
‘I was actually hoping to show them, “Hey look man, I know what happened was horrible and your son made a horrible mistake,”‘ Jeff explained. ‘I was hoping for some accountability maybe and some remorse – and neither one was shown.’
But, Jeff said, the family had already retained lawyer Dominique Alexander, who threw him out of the press conference, saying the grieving father shouldn’t be there and that it was not dignified.’
‘That’s when they took it from any type of remorse, which they did not show, to the fact that now we’re gonna play the race card and now we’re gonna politicize this, now we’re getting a political activist involved – the two things I said [in] one of the first interviews I ever did was “Please don’t make this about race and please don’t politicize it,” but they chose to do both.’
