On Tuesday evening, the murder trial of Karmelo Anthony reached a dramatic finale as the father of slain high school athlete Austin Metcalf confronted his son’s killer.
During a poignant victim impact statement, the father demanded that Anthony, the convicted murderer, meet his gaze while he recounted the tragic details of his son’s premature death.
“You’re heading to prison,” declared Jeff Metcalf to Anthony. “You can’t even meet my eyes now, yet you had the nerve to stab my son in the heart.”
At just 19, Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Metcalf during a high school track event, a moment that brought Anthony to tears in court.
The grieving father expressed the intense anger he harbors over the loss of his son.
“If you asked what my son’s death did to me, I’d say it obliterated the person I once was. Not changed—destroyed,” Jeff shared with the court.
The still-grieving father said he forgave Anthony ‘the day it happened’ but did not forgive ‘what you did.’
He said the Metcalf family was ‘robbed’ of seeing Austin grow up and regretted he wasn’t there to defend his son at the sporting event in April 2025.
‘People think that grief is sadness but it’s not. IT’S RAGE!!! Pure unfiltered rage,’ Jeff shouted as he slammed his fist down.
‘My son’s death didn’t just break my heart,’ he continued, claiming it also destroyed ‘my sense of safety, my faith in people.’
Austin Metcalf’s father, Jeff Metcalf, hit out at his son’s killer in court on Tuesday for not being able to look him in the eye
Karmelo Anthony, 19, pictured in his booking photo on Tuesday, was sentenced to serve 35 years behind bars for fatally stabbing Austin Metcalf, 17, last year
Austin Metcalf, 17, died after Anthony stabbed him with a folding knife at a track meet last April
Jeff also struck down arguments that the case was about race – as Anthony is a black teenager and Metcalf was white.
Instead, he argued, the case was about ‘right and wrong.’
‘We’re all humans. We all bleed the same color,’ Jeff noted, before addressing Anthony himself.
‘You’re free to make choices all you want, but you’re not free from those consequences. You will face those consequences starting today,’ he said.
‘You failed your parents, you failed yourself and you failed society. You don’t belong in this community,’ the heartbroken father concluded.
The court also heard from Metcalf’s mother and twin brother, who picked up where his father left off.
‘If you could just look me in the eye while I speak, I would really respect that,’ Hunter Metcalf told his brother’s killer.
But Anthony kept looking down as Hunter said he wanted ‘everything to be taken’ from him.
‘You took a son, a brother, a friend, and my best friend, from this world,’ Hunter said, getting emotional. ‘You took someone from me who was supposed to be an uncle, godfather to my kids. Now I want everything taken from you.’
Both Jeff and Austin’s twin brother, Hunter, delivered victim impact statements in court
Anthony had wandered into the tent for Frisco ISD’s Memorial High School at the track meet
Join the discussion
How should families find justice when a loved one’s killer shows no remorse in court?
Hunter went on to speak about the fatal stabbing.
‘You let the devil take over in that moment,’ he said. ‘Eventually your name will be forgotten, but my brother’s memory will live on.’
‘I know deep down, you really forget what you did,’ Hunter continued, arguing he is usually fair about seeking justice
‘I always say “An eye for an eye,” but you still have air to breathe while my brother is six feet under,’ he noted, sharing how his mother cries herself to sleep and that he wakes up every day to find his brother’s bedroom door still shut.
In her own statement, Metcalf’s mother, Meghan, said she was left ‘crushed’ by Austin’s death and seeing the effect it had on Hunter.
‘Seeing my loving son, his identical twin, lose the most important person in his life, it crushes you as a mother,’ she said.
She went on to describe Austin as a ‘hugger’ who ‘always had a way of bringing people together.’
‘He was the peacemaker, the protector,’ Meghan recounted.
‘There is a part of him you can never take away from me or anyone who loves Austin. What it meant to be loved by him. It’s the love that I can continue to have in my heart.
‘He was taken from us just as he was starting to really live,’ the slain teen’s mom said as she addressed Anthony directly.
‘You may have just been given a sentence of 35 years behind bars but you can consider yourself lucky because I’ve been sentenced to a lifetime without my son,’ Meghan said.
Anthony was found guilty of murder on Tuesday, leaving him and his family in tears
An Austin Metcalf supporter held a sign outside the Collin County courthouse after the verdict was reached
An emotional Karmelo Anthony supporter was consoled by another outside the courthouse
The powerful testimonies came just hours after Anthony was found guilty of murder, leaving him and his family in tears.
He had originally faced between five and 99 years behind bars for knifing Metcalf at the track event in Frisco, Texas, last year.
But after the verdict was passed at the Collin County courthouse on Tuesday, prosecutors agreed to consider ‘sudden passion’ as a factor when determining Anthony’s sentence.
‘Sudden passion’ is a legal term in Texas that allows a criminal to argue they were in an intense emotional state when they committed wrongdoing. It would have reduced Anthony’s murder to a second-degree felony, for which he could have served as little as two years behind bars.
It was then left up to the jury to decide whether to apply the ‘sudden passion’ argument to the case and reduce Anthony’s murder charge or stick to their original verdict.
Both the defense and the prosecution presented arguments for and against the ‘sudden passion’ argument, with defense attorney Mike Howard arguing Anthony ‘didn’t have time for cool reflection.’
‘He acted in that moment and sudden passion applies,’ he claimed.
Prosecutor Bill Wirskye, however, argued that the ‘sudden passion’ clause is ‘inapplicable’ in this situation.
Anthony had claimed he was acting in self-defense when he stabbed Metcalf with a folding knife after a heated argument under a tent
Witnesses who were in the tent described Anthony as the aggressor, testifying that Anthony 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
‘Sudden passion doesn’t fit here. They’ve got it wrong,’ he claimed. ‘Sudden passion is when the victim, the dead person provokes. Who caused this? Not Austin Metcalf, Karmelo Anthony did.’
Wirskye went on to note that the law says that ‘sudden passion’ applies to a person of ‘ordinary temper.’
‘Do you think a person of ordinary temper would have plunged a knife in Austin’s chest?’ he asked, rhetorically.
Anthony had claimed he was acting in self-defense when he stabbed Metcalf with a folding knife after a heated argument under a tent.
Yet witnesses who were in the tent described Anthony as the aggressor, testifying that Anthony 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.
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 fleeing the stadium.
Law enforcement officials stood in front of the courthouse on Tuesday as protesters on both sides flocked to the scene
A crowd was seen gathering by Collin County Sheriffs vehicles parked in front of the courthouse after the Karmelo Anthony verdict was reached
Anthony sat motionless in court as police body camera footage from April last year showed Hunter pleading for help after the stabbing.
Hunter shouted, ‘Oh my God. He’s my best friend. He’s my brother.’
He became hysterical as he begged for help and cried out, ‘I can’t do this.’
At one point, Hunter grew incoherent and seemed to be praying out loud.
Jurors gasped in horror after being shown never-before-seen photos of Metcalf’s punctured heart during the trial.
Metcalf was stabbed once 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.
While cross-examining the medical examiner, Anthony’s lawyers implied that Metcalf impaled himself on the knife.
After his defense lawyers called on six witnesses who offered underwhelming evidence, Anthony opted not to take the stand.
At a brief press conference, Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis said justice was served in Karmelo Anthony’s murder trial. He was joined by Metcalf’s family
The jury then spent less than three hours on Tuesday before passing its guilty verdict, and another roughly two and a half hours before they handed down their sentence.
Anthony will now have to serve at least half of the sentence before he is eligible for parole.
At a brief press conference, Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis said justice was served in Karmelo Anthony’s murder trial.
‘This verdict sends a clear message that violence will not be tolerated in Collin County or in our schools,’ he said.
But Anthony’s supporters have claimed he had been treated unfairly in the trial because he is black, and there were no black members on the jury.
Twelve jurors and six alternates, who are mostly white, with the exception of three Hispanics, two Asians, and two from the Middle East and India, had been selected to decide Anthony’s fate.
During jury selection, defense attorneys raised a Batson challenge: a legal objection used when it is believed potential jurors were struck off because of race.
The challenge and jury selection may now come into question for possible appeals.
