Karmelo Anthony: Texts and Knife Photo Sent to Ex Revealed in New Trial Hearing

Nearly three years after a Frisco, Texas track meet ended in the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, new details about the hours before the killing have surfaced publicly for the first time.

During an August 20, 2026, hearing on Karmelo Anthony’s request for a new trial, Collin County prosecutors described text messages and a photo of a knife that Anthony allegedly sent to an ex-girlfriend on the morning of the stabbing, along with testimony that the young woman had reported to a school administrator, just hours before Metcalf’s death, that she was afraid of Anthony and believed he was stalking her.

None of this was heard by the jury that convicted Anthony of murder in June 2026. According to testimony at the hearing, prosecutors and Anthony’s trial defense team had an informal, off-the-record understanding to keep character evidence about both Anthony and Metcalf out of the trial, in an effort to keep the highly publicized case from becoming, in one attorney’s words, more racially charged than it already was.

Anthony, now 19, was sentenced to 35 years in prison after a Collin County jury rejected his claim of self-defense. His new legal team is now asking a different judge to throw out that conviction. Here is what has been revealed, and what it means for the case going forward.

What Prosecutors Say the Evidence Shows

At Thursday’s hearing, Collin County Assistant District Attorney Bill Wirskye described evidence that had been excluded from Anthony’s June trial under the agreement between the two sides. It is important to note that this evidence has not been tested by a jury, and Anthony’s legal team was in the courtroom to contest how it should be characterized. The following is what prosecutors presented and how they characterized it.

🚨 UPDATE: The Karmelo Anthony legal team is IN SHAMBLES after bombshell texts came out that he fantasized about m*rder before killing Austin Metcalf

“How many bullets u want coming out of ur chest?”

“When I st*b somebody I’m gonna lick their blood off the blade”

2 hours… pic.twitter.com/dWrcOupaHH

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 21, 2026

The morning of the stabbing

According to Wirskye’s account, on the morning of April 2, 2025, Anthony’s ex-girlfriend went to an assistant principal at her school and said she was being stalked by Anthony and that she was afraid of him. She reportedly also told the administrator that Anthony was “obsessed” with guns and knives.

Court testimony described a text exchange that morning in which the young woman told Anthony she did not want him talking to other girls. Anthony’s defense pointed out, through witness testimony, that nothing in the exchange indicated the relationship had ended.

Roughly two hours after the young woman raised her concerns with the school administrator, according to prosecutors’ timeline, Anthony fatally stabbed Metcalf under a tent at the Memorial High School team’s section of the track meet.

The knife photo and accompanying text

Wirskye told the court that a message recovered from Anthony’s phone that morning included a photograph of a knife along with the words “I’m low-key on the verge.” Multiple outlets reported the same message with minor variations in spelling, including “im lowk on the verge.”

Wirskye described Anthony, in his words, as “spiraling” in the hours before the stabbing.

An earlier message cited by prosecutors

Separately, prosecutors pointed to a message they said was recovered from months earlier, in which Anthony wrote about a violent hypothetical: stabbing someone and, in his words, “licking the blood off the blade.” Wirskye cited the message as part of a broader argument that Anthony had a documented history of fixation on violence and had previously been enrolled by his parents in a behavioral program in Louisiana, before the family moved to Texas, described in court as intended for children who could not “keep their hands to themselves.”

Prosecutors argued this pattern of behavior was relevant to explaining why, in Wirskye’s phrasing to the court, Anthony brought a knife to a track meet in the first place.

A note on sourcing: The identity of Anthony’s ex-girlfriend from April 2025 has not been made public in court filings or news coverage, and this article does not attempt to identify her. She should not be confused with Valeria Perez, a woman who has publicly identified herself as Anthony’s girlfriend since his conviction and who has spoken out in his support.

What the Defense Says Jurors Also Didn’t Hear About Metcalf

The “gentleman’s agreement” cited at the hearing cut both ways. Anthony’s trial attorney, Mike Howard, testified that the same informal deal kept character evidence about Austin Metcalf and his twin brother, Hunter, out of the trial as well.

According to testimony and court filings described at the hearing, this included allegations that Metcalf and his twin brother had, in 2023, spray-painted graffiti containing racist and antisemitic language. Howard also referenced disciplinary records indicating Metcalf had been accused of bullying another student in 2023 and was ordered, about a month before his death, to stay away from a different student following a separate bullying allegation. Howard further said Metcalf had used a racial slur in messages with friends, though it was not immediately clear from court testimony which specific term was used.

These allegations, like the evidence involving Anthony, were not presented to the jury and have not been tested through cross-examination in front of a jury. They are described here as they were characterized by defense attorneys in court, not as established fact.

It is worth noting, as CNN and other outlets covering the original trial reported, that attorneys on both sides told jurors during the June trial that the case had nothing to do with race, despite the intense national attention the killing drew in part because Anthony is Black and Metcalf was white.

What Actually Happened on April 2, 2025

To understand why this new evidence matters, it helps to recall the established facts of the case, which were presented to the jury and are not in dispute.

On the morning of April 2, 2025, a rain delay had pushed several school track teams, including Frisco Memorial High School and Frisco Centennial High School, into a compressed schedule at David Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco. Anthony, a Centennial student, was sitting under a tent belonging to Memorial’s team when Metcalf, a Memorial junior, asked him to leave.

According to witness testimony at trial, an argument followed. Witnesses said Anthony reached into his bag and said, “Touch me and see what happens.” Metcalf pushed or grabbed Anthony to get him to move. Anthony then pulled a knife from his bag and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest before running from the scene.

Metcalf’s twin brother, Hunter, held him as he died. Anthony was arrested on school property shortly afterward. According to the arrest affidavit, Anthony told the responding officer, unprompted, “I was protecting myself” and, after hearing himself described as a suspect, said, “I’m not alleged. I did it.”

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Who Were Karmelo Anthony and Austin Metcalf?

Austin Matthew Metcalf was born July 31, 2007, and was a junior at Memorial High School in Frisco. He held a 3.97 GPA, was the MVP linebacker on the school’s football team, and competed in track and field. He had a twin brother, Hunter, who was present at the time of the stabbing.

Karmelo Anthony

Karmelo Sincere Anthony was born May 10, 2007, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the oldest of four children. His family later moved to Texas. At the time of the stabbing, he was a student at Centennial High School, where he was captain of both the track and football teams, held two part-time jobs, and was on track to graduate the following month. According to reporting at the time, he had no prior criminal record and did not know Metcalf before the encounter.

From Arrest to Conviction: How the Case Unfolded

Anthony was initially held on a $1 million bond, later reduced to $250,000 over financial hardship, a decision that drew public criticism given that his family had also raised more than $540,000 through an online fundraiser for legal fees. He was released to live with his family in Frisco while awaiting trial.

The case became a national flashpoint almost immediately, driven in large part by social media posts that framed the killing in racial terms. Both the Anthony and Metcalf families said publicly that they and their relatives had been targets of online harassment as the case gained attention.

The trial

Anthony’s trial began in late May 2026 in the 296th District Court under Judge John Roach Jr. Roach imposed strict courtroom rules, including limits on live media coverage and public seating, and issued a gag order barring trial participants from discussing the case publicly, citing the intensity of the scrutiny.

Multiple witnesses testified that Anthony was the initial aggressor in the confrontation. On June 9, 2026, after roughly three hours of deliberation, the jury found Anthony guilty of first-degree murder, rejecting both his self-defense claim and the option of a lesser manslaughter conviction. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The Fight for a New Trial

Anthony’s post-conviction legal team, which includes several prominent civil rights and appellate attorneys working pro bono, moved quickly after sentencing. Central to their strategy was an effort to remove Judge Roach from any further proceedings in the case.

Two days after the verdict, Roach gave a television interview in which he was asked whether the jury “got it right.” He answered, “Yeah, they did,” adding, “Whatever they say, they got it right.” Anthony’s attorneys argued this and other comments in the interview showed Roach had effectively prejudged the very question his court would need to decide: whether Anthony deserved a new trial.

On August 19, 2026, visiting Judge Sid Harle, an administrative judge from San Antonio who has presided over other high-profile Texas cases, ruled that Roach must be recused from further proceedings. Harle said he personally believed Roach could rule fairly, but that the legal standard for recusal asks whether a reasonable member of the public might question the judge’s impartiality, not what the judge himself believes. Retired Judge Michael Chitty, a former district judge from Kaufman County who had been retired since 2020, was assigned to hear the new-trial motion.

The arguments for a new trial

Anthony’s new defense attorney, Russell Wilson, argued at Thursday’s hearing that the original trial was compromised in several ways: courtroom access restrictions that limited public and press coverage, jury instructions that Wilson said improperly narrowed jurors’ ability to weigh self-defense, and the breakdown of the informal agreement to keep character evidence out of the case, which Wilson argued created pressure that contributed to Anthony’s decision not to testify at his own trial.

Wilson has said he plans to introduce roughly 40 exhibits supporting the claim that Roach ran what he called a “shadow docket,” making significant decisions off the record.

A tight legal deadline

Texas law requires a ruling on a motion for a new trial within 75 days of sentencing. Because Anthony was sentenced June 9, that deadline fell on Monday, August 24, 2026. If Judge Chitty does not rule by then, the motion is automatically denied by operation of law.

Legal analysts not connected to the case have described winning a new-trial motion as an uphill battle. Attorney Todd Shapiro, who was not involved in the case, told reporters that Judge Roach had “run an incredibly efficient, fair trial” and predicted it would be difficult for Anthony’s team to succeed, even with a new judge reviewing the request.

Timeline of the Case

What Happens Next

As of this writing, Judge Chitty has not ruled on whether Anthony will receive a new trial. Given the statutory deadline, a decision, or the automatic denial of the motion, was expected on or around August 24, 2026.

If the motion is denied, Anthony’s 35-year sentence stands, though his legal team could pursue further appeals through Texas’s standard appellate process. If granted, the case would return to trial, and it remains an open question whether the previously excluded evidence, from both sides, would be admissible the second time around.

Frequently Asked Questions

What new evidence was revealed about Karmelo Anthony?

At an August 20, 2026, hearing on his motion for a new trial, prosecutors described text messages and a photo of a knife that Anthony allegedly sent to an ex-girlfriend on the morning of the stabbing, along with testimony that she had reported to a school administrator that she was afraid of him and believed he was stalking her. None of this was presented to the jury that convicted him.

Why wasn’t this evidence shown to the jury?

According to testimony at the hearing, prosecutors and Anthony’s trial defense attorneys had an informal, off-the-record agreement to exclude character evidence about both Anthony and Metcalf from the trial, in part to avoid inflaming the case’s already intense public and racial attention.

Was Karmelo Anthony convicted of murder?

Yes. A Collin County jury convicted Anthony of first-degree murder on June 9, 2026, and he was sentenced to 35 years in prison. He is currently seeking a new trial; that request had not been decided as of this writing.

Who is Karmelo Anthony’s ex-girlfriend?

She has not been publicly named in court filings or news coverage, and this article does not identify her. She is a separate person from Valeria Perez, who has publicly identified herself as Anthony’s girlfriend since his conviction.

What evidence about Austin Metcalf was also excluded from the trial?

Anthony’s trial attorney said the same agreement kept out allegations that Metcalf and his twin brother had been involved in racist graffiti, along with other disciplinary and bullying-related allegations. These claims, like the evidence involving Anthony, were not tested before a jury.

Why was the trial judge removed from the case?

Judge John Roach Jr., who presided over the June trial, gave a television interview after the verdict in which he said the jury “got it right.” Anthony’s attorneys argued this showed he had prejudged the question of whether Anthony deserved a new trial. A different judge agreed and recused Roach from further proceedings.

What happens if Karmelo Anthony is granted a new trial?

The case would return to trial. It is not yet clear whether the evidence discussed at the August 2026 hearing, involving both Anthony and Metcalf, would be admissible in a retrial.

When will a decision be made on the new trial motion?

Texas law required a ruling within 75 days of sentencing, setting a deadline of August 24, 2026. If no ruling is issued by then, the motion is automatically denied.

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Last Updated on August 21, 2026 by 247 News Around The World