🚨 Chilling Texts Surface As Karmelo Anthony’s New Trial Bid Reveals A Shocking Knife Warning, A Stal
The texts arrived like a warning no one heeded. On the morning of April 2, 2025, Karmelo Anthony sent his ex-girlfriend a photograph of a folding knife and a message that would later haunt the case: “I’m low key on the verge.” Another message, according to prosecutors, went further. He fantasized about stabbing someone and licking the blood off the blade. Hours later, that same knife was in Austin Metcalf’s chest.
Collin County Assistant District Attorney Bill Wirskye laid out the previously withheld evidence Thursday during a hearing on Anthony’s bid for a new trial. The 19-year-old, convicted in June of murdering the 17-year-old Memorial High School student at a Frisco track meet, had been sentenced to 35 years. The jury that found him guilty never heard about the stalking report, the knife photos, the graphic texts, or Anthony’s reported obsession with fights, guns, and blades. They also never heard about Austin Metcalf’s own juvenile record. Both sides had agreed to keep those histories out.
The agreement, described in court as a “gentleman’s agreement,” was designed to keep the trial focused on what happened under one tent on a rainy April afternoon and to prevent the already combustible case from exploding into an even more volatile racial flashpoint. Wirskye said he offered the deal. “Let’s stay away from historical character and stick to the facts — what happened under the tent.”
What happened under the tent was brief and lethal. During a district track meet at Kuykendall Stadium, Anthony, then a 17-year-old student at rival Centennial High, sat beneath the Memorial High tent in the bleachers. Metcalf and others told him repeatedly to leave. Witnesses described an escalating confrontation. Anthony reached into a bag and warned, according to a police report, “Touch me and see what happens.” Metcalf shoved him. Anthony pulled the knife and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest, piercing his heart. Metcalf died shortly afterward as his twin brother Hunter tried to stop the bleeding.
Anthony immediately surrendered. On body-camera video he told officers, “I’m not alleged. I did it,” and asked if Austin would be okay. He has maintained he acted in self-defense. Prosecutors argued he provoked the encounter and then used deadly force in a sneak attack. The jury rejected the self-defense claim after less than three hours of deliberation.
The withheld evidence now at the center of the appeal hearing paints a picture of a teenager already unraveling that morning. Wirskye told the court that Anthony’s high school girlfriend went to an assistant principal on April 2 and reported that he was stalking her after she ended the relationship. She said he would not accept the breakup. She described him as obsessed with violence. The texts followed. Prosecutors said he had previously been sent to a program in Louisiana for young people who struggled with anger and keeping their hands to themselves. “He was spiraling,” Wirskye said.
In exchange for keeping that material out, the defense agreed not to introduce evidence about Austin and Hunter Metcalf’s juvenile history. That history, according to court filings and testimony, included graffiti containing “vile racist stuff” — phrases such as “KKK kill all blacks,” “Heil Hitler,” and the N-word — along with allegations of bullying and prior fights. The twins had been placed on juvenile probation. The defense had prepared to argue that Anthony knew the brothers had a reputation for aggression and that this knowledge supported his claim of fear.
The deal collapsed, according to Anthony’s original trial attorney Mike Howard, after the prosecution rested. Prosecutors took the position that if Anthony testified, the agreement would no longer apply. Howard said the sudden shift left the defense with little time and forced Anthony to stay off the stand. Anthony’s new appellate team, which includes Russell Wilson, argues the dispute and other trial restrictions — including limited public access and what they call a “shadow docket” — denied him a fair trial. They also cite comments the original trial judge, John Roach Jr., made in a television interview after the verdict, saying jurors “got it right.” Roach was recused this week. A retired judge now considering the motion for a new trial.
The case has been racially charged from the start. Anthony is Black. Metcalf was white. Both families reported harassment. National attention, social-media campaigns, and accusations of bias surrounded the proceedings. Wirskye has insisted the trial itself was never about race. “This was never about race. This was really never about self-defense,” he said after the verdict. He has defended the jury selection and the 35-year sentence as justice served by 12 local citizens.
Yet the newly detailed evidence raises questions the first jury never had to answer. Why did Anthony bring a knife to a track meet? Prosecutors now say the texts and the stalking report that morning supply part of the answer. The defense counters that jurors also never heard the full context of the Metcalf twins’ past, which they believe would have supported the self-defense narrative.
Austin Metcalf’s father has described his son as someone who did not know Anthony. Hunter was standing nearby when the stabbing occurred. The loss has been compounded by the public circus that followed. Anthony’s supporters have called the conviction unjust. Metcalf’s family has said the verdict brought a measure of accountability for a senseless killing.
The hearing this week is only one step. The new judge could grant a retrial, deny the motion, or take the matter under advisement. Legal observers have noted that appeals of this kind rarely succeed, but the volume of previously excluded material and the dispute over the unwritten agreement have given Anthony’s team a new set of arguments.
The knife itself was an inexpensive folding model with a 3.5-inch blade. It was enough. One thrust ended a 17-year-old’s life in front of teammates, coaches, and spectators during what should have been an ordinary high-school athletic event. The texts, the stalking complaint, the graffiti, the gentleman’s agreement, and the recusal of the trial judge have now turned the aftermath into another chapter of the same story: two teenagers, one dead, one serving decades, and a community still arguing over what the jury should have been allowed to know.
Whether that knowledge would have changed the outcome remains the question the appellate process will have to decide. For now, the record shows a young man who sent violent messages hours before he used a knife, a victim whose own juvenile record was kept from view, and a legal system that tried — and, according to one side, failed — to keep the case from becoming something larger and uglier than the facts under the tent.
