Previously undisclosed allegations about Karmelo Anthony’s behavior before the confrontation that resulted in Austin Metcalf’s de@th have emerged during Anthony’s attempt to secure a new trial, including a troubling complaint reportedly made by his former girlfriend on the morning of the incident.
Anthony, now 19, was convicted of mu*der in June 2026 for the April 2025 de@th of 17-year-old Metcalf during a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas. A jury rejected Anthony’s self-defense argument and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. He is now challenging that conviction.
During the new-trial hearing this week, prosecutors revealed evidence that had been deliberately kept away from the original jury under an informal agreement between the prosecution and Anthony’s defense team.
One of the most significant revelations involved Anthony’s former girlfriend.
According to testimony presented at the hearing, the girl reportedly approached a school administrator on the morning of April 2, 2025, saying she was afraid of Anthony and accusing him of stalking her after their relationship had ended. She reportedly said Anthony was having difficulty accepting the breakup.
The timing made the allegation especially notable.
The complaint was reportedly made less than two hours before the confrontation between Anthony and Metcalf at the district track meet.
Prosecutors also discussed messages allegedly recovered from Anthony’s phone that they argued demonstrated concerning thoughts about violence before the incident. One message sent that morning reportedly accompanied a photograph of a knife and suggested Anthony was approaching some kind of breaking point.
Other previously excluded messages were discussed in court as well. Prosecutors argued that the material showed Anthony had expressed violent thoughts before ever encountering Metcalf.
These allegations were not presented to the jury during Anthony’s original trial.
The reason has now become an important part of his new legal battle. Prosecutors and Anthony’s original defense attorneys had reached what has been described in court as a “gentleman’s agreement” to prevent damaging character evidence concerning both Anthony and Metcalf from becoming part of the trial.
That agreement didn’t only protect Anthony from potentially damaging allegations.
The jury also didn’t hear certain information concerning Metcalf’s past, including juvenile incidents and allegations involving racist graffiti. Both sides apparently believed introducing the teenagers’ histories could inflame an already highly charged case rather than keep the jury focused on what happened during their encounter.
Anthony’s new attorneys are now questioning decisions made during the original proceedings, including that agreement, courtroom-access restrictions, jury instructions and circumstances surrounding Anthony’s decision not to testify.
The revelations therefore create an unusual situation.
Anthony is asking the court for another trial, but doing so has resulted in potentially damaging evidence about his own past becoming public—information the prosecution had previously agreed not to use against him.
At the same time, Anthony’s attorneys can argue that information excluded about Metcalf might have been relevant to their original self-defense case.
The new-trial fight has already produced one significant victory for Anthony.
Judge John Roach Jr., who presided over the original trial, was removed from the post-trial proceedings after another judge concluded that his impartiality could reasonably be questioned following public comments he made about the verdict. Retired Judge Michael Chitty is now considering Anthony’s request for another trial.
None of this means Anthony’s conviction has been overturned.
He remains convicted of mu*der and continues to face his 35-year sentence while the court considers whether problems with the original proceedings justify giving him a new trial.
The latest testimony nevertheless reveals something jurors never knew when they reached their verdict: only shortly before Anthony and Metcalf encountered one another at the track meet, Anthony’s former girlfriend had reportedly gone to school officials with serious concerns about his behavior toward her.
Whether that previously hidden information ultimately has any effect on Anthony’s attempt to overturn his conviction is now for the new judge to decide.
