Prosecutors In Karmelo Anthony Case Hid The Most Damning Evidence

The adversarial justice system is easy to take for granted. But it’s one of the most important legal concepts we have. We couldn’t function as a civilization without it. 

It prevents us from turning into North Korea overnight. It keeps our courts from devolving into inquisitions and show trials, where enemies of the state are railroaded, while allies of the government can do whatever they want. 

In an adversarial justice system, prosecutors are on one side with a mandate to pursue justice and secure convictions where appropriate. The defense is on the other side with a mandate to get their client acquitted one way or another. And crucially, the two sides are not friends. 

They don’t look out for one another. They have competing interests. They’re locked in a duel. A judge mediates disputes as they arise. After both sides pursue the evidence to the best of their ability and make the best argument possible for their side, a jury deliberates and renders a verdict. This is how every criminal trial must work in this country, or else we might as well abandon the concept of criminal trials altogether. 

We are now learning that the trial of Karmelo Anthony — the black high school student who stabbed a white teenager named Austin Metcalf to death at a track meet last year — did not even come close to following this well-established, fundamental, all-important adversarial process. Instead, critical evidence against Karmelo Anthony was withheld from the jury by the prosecutors — the very people who, under our adversarial system, should have presented that evidence. 

This evidence was not withheld because of a judge’s ruling, but because of a “gentleman’s agreement” between the district attorney and the defense lawyers. And, as you’re about to find out, the hidden evidence would have been overwhelmingly beneficial to the prosecution’s case against Karmelo Anthony. We’re talking about what was, in effect, a confession by Anthony to premeditated murder. And it was hidden by the prosecutors for reasons that simply do not add up. 

In other words, the prosecution gave Anthony’s defense team a huge leg up, while also burying critical information so that the jury and the public at large couldn’t see it. There’s no other way to say it: The fact that Anthony was convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison occurred despite the prosecution giving his defense team a major legal advantage in a case that just so happens to involve the brutal slaughter of a white teenager by a black criminal.

We’re learning about this new evidence because Anthony’s lawyers are now seeking a new trial. And as part of that process, a judge is now hearing arguments about all of the evidence in the case, including evidence that wasn’t presented to the jury.  

First, we need to discuss the hidden evidence itself. In court Thursday, the prosecutor — Collin County Assistant District Attorney Bill Wirskye — admitted that the state possessed several violent text messages that Anthony sent to an ex-girlfriend. In one of those text messages, on the morning he stabbed Austin Metcalf, Anthony sent his ex-girlfriend a picture of his knife, along with the caption, “I’m low key on the verge” — as in, on the verge of snapping. 

Additionally, the prosecutor disclosed that “There is a text message where he fantasizes about stabbing someone and licking the blood off the blade.” We don’t know exactly when this especially gruesome message was sent, but it was at some point prior to Anthony stabbing Metcalf to death. 

It’s important to emphasize that these were not random edgy texts from five years ago. Anthony was telling his ex-girlfriend that he was spiraling out of control on the exact same day he later stabbed Metcalf in the heart. And she took these threats seriously, as you’d expect. 

On the morning of April 2nd — the day Anthony stabbed Metcalf — Anthony’s ex-girlfriend went to an assistant principal at her school to complain that Anthony was stalking her and sending her these threatening messages, following their break-up. The ex-girlfriend reported that Anthony was “obsessed with fights, guns, and knives.” 

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There is no question that these text messages should have been shown to the jury and to the public. They are clearly relevant to the question of whether Karmelo Anthony deliberately killed Metcalf with premeditation as opposed to self-defense. More specifically, these text messages completely demolish any claim of self-defense. They nuke the self-defense claim from orbit. They demonstrate, very explicitly, that Anthony went looking to provoke a scenario where he could kill someone with his knife because he was enraged about his breakup. 

This is not a close call. To be clear, this is not unfair “character evidence.” We’re not talking about a malicious attempt to malign Karmelo Anthony’s character here. Introducing these text messages would not be a smear tactic where the jury is confronted with prejudicial evidence that simply makes Karmelo Anthony look like a bad guy in general. This is very different. 

We’re talking about a contemporaneous statement from the murderer himself, in which he announces his intention to commit the exact crime he commits. He didn’t say, “I want to punch someone today.” He didn’t say, “I’m in a really bad mood.” He explicitly said he was losing his mind and wanted to stab someone with his knife. If this isn’t legitimate, highly important evidence in a murder trial where someone was stabbed with a knife a few hours later, then nothing is.

So why didn’t the prosecutors introduce the text messages into evidence? Why didn’t they show them to the jury? They had every right to do so. The judge didn’t exclude the evidence (nor would any judge ever do so, since it’s obviously a key piece of evidence). So what was the reason?

The prosecutor stated in court Thursday that he “offered the agreement” to the defense because, before the trial began, the defense claimed to have evidence that Austin Metcalf had written racist messages in the past. And the prosecution was supposedly worried that if the defense introduced those racist messages and the prosecution introduced Karmelo Anthony’s texts, then the trial would become a “racial tinderbox” in the public eye. 

So to avoid inflaming tensions, the prosecution agreed to bury the text message evidence against Karmelo Anthony, and the defense agreed that it wouldn’t bring up Austin Metcalf’s allegedly racist messages. Both sides agreed, in other words, to only introduce evidence about the events that occurred inside the tent. And they did it in secret without telling the public — which in many ways makes this worse than what Soros prosecutors do every day. At least the Soros prosecutors disclose the fact that they want to help criminals get out of prison.

There are so many problems with the reasoning behind this “gentleman’s agreement” that it’s difficult to know where to begin. First of all, the evidence against Karmelo Anthony is clearly relevant and admissible in this murder trial. It relates directly to his state of mind, his premeditation, and his motive on the day of the murder. It’s hard to imagine a more relevant and important piece of evidence. 

On the other hand, the messages that Austin Metcalf supposedly wrote (or spray-painted onto walls) had nothing to do with his death. At best, assuming the messages are even real, they suggest he was an edgy teenager. But Metcalf’s alleged racist messages do not demonstrate that he had any tendency to commit violence at a track meet or anywhere else, or that he was a threat to Karmelo Anthony. Now, if Austin Metcalf had texted someone on the day of the murder, “I’m going to attack a black guy today for no reason,” that would be a very relevant text message. It would be just as relevant as what Karmelo Anthony texted his ex-girlfriend. But that didn’t happen. Put simply, the text message evidence against Karmelo Anthony would have been admissible in court. Most of the evidence against Austin Metcalf would not.

Just to be specific about what the defense lawyers are claiming about Austin Metcalf and the evidence they gathered, here’s a report from The Daily Mail:

Slain high school athlete Austin Metcalf and his twin brother were allegedly caught spray-painting racist graffiti, including ‘kill all black people’ and the N-word, defense attorneys revealed. … Former Anthony defense attorney Mike Howard, who represented Anthony at his June trial, took the stand and testified that he had criminal information on both Austin Metcalf and his twin brother, Hunter. A document presented in court showed that the defense had photographs of graffiti allegedly created by the twins and another boy, featuring phrases including ‘KKK,’ ‘kill all black people,’ ‘Heil Hitler’ and the N-word. Police also had bodycam footage from their response to the incident, in which Austin can allegedly be heard admitting to the officer, ‘We did some stuff, we did some vandalism.’ … Both twins ultimately received 12 months of probation for the incident, according to Howard, who also revealed that Austin had previously faced charges for assault causing bodily injury.

First of all, just at the outset, note that this is all based on testimony from “former Anthony defense attorney Mike Howard.” So this is not exactly an unbiased source, and frankly some of it seems made up. They apparently have hard evidence of Metcalf admitting to “vandalism” without any specific proof that Metcalf himself wrote these messages.

But again, let’s just assume it’s true. The fact that a teenager writes edgy stuff is not particularly surprising. In fact, at this same hearing, according to Breanna Morello, they revealed that Karmelo Anthony had also written anti-white, anti-Mexican, and anti-black messages on his laptop. Is that a good thing? Of course not. But it’s also irrelevant to this murder trial. So if the defense wants to admit Austin Metcalf’s offensive social media videos or whatever, let them do it. The evidence against Karmelo Anthony is devastating.

As it turns out, there are actual rules of evidence about this, which courts must follow. They’re written down. Anyone can Google them. Here’s the Rule of Evidence 404 in Texas:

Evidence of a person’s character or character trait is not admissible to prove that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character or trait. … In a criminal case, a defendant may offer evidence of a victim’s pertinent trait, and if the evidence is admitted, the prosecutor may offer evidence to rebut it.

In other words, any evidence that Austin Metcalf had a “character trait” of being racist — even assuming it’s true — is not admissible to prove that, on this particular occasion, Austin Metcalf acted in a racist manner. And there’s no “pertinent trait” that’s revealed by graffiti either. 

Even if someone is a racist and likes to tag property that doesn’t belong to him, that does not give anyone else a license to stab that person in the heart. For about a dozen reasons, this whole line of reasoning comes crashing down.

On the other hand, Karmelo Anthony’s text messages on the day of the murder have nothing to do with any “character trait.” They have to do with his motive to commit the crime, as well as his intent to commit the crime and his state of mind. It’s an admission of what he’s planning. That’s very different from character evidence. It’s mind-boggling that a prosecutor would pretend otherwise. A killer who says “I’m about to commit a murder” on the day of the murder is essentially confessing. He’s not giving you background information about his character.

By the way, some of the evidence presented Thursday about Karmelo Anthony would also probably qualify as character-based evidence. For example, there was also evidence that when he was living in Baton Rouge, Anthony’s parent “enrolled him in a special LSU program for children who struggled to control their aggression and ‘keep their hands to themselves.’ ” 

It’s a relevant piece of information, but it doesn’t directly relate to the events that took place on the day of the murder. So you could imagine a scenario where a jury wouldn’t be allowed to see this particular bit of information. The text messages from the day of the murder, on the other hand, are clearly relevant.

Later in the hearing, the defense dug up even more dirt against Austin Metcalf, which theoretically may have been admissible in court. This is, again, from The Daily Mail.

Howard said Austin was arrested in May 2018, while he was still in elementary school, after allegedly shoving a girl to the ground and injuring her shoulder badly enough to require hospitalization. … In December 2024, Austin allegedly told a church group that he was consumed by anger, lust and addiction and that they had taken control of his life, the defense attorney said. He also pointed to a March 2022 incident in which Austin allegedly mocked a Black student for eating a banana and filmed another student as he appeared to shove the boy’s head into his crotch. Another video from 2023 allegedly shows Austin cheering as a friend chased and tackled a Black student, with Austin heard saying, ‘get over here, you black Jew.’ 

There are some other incidents as well, according to J.D. Miles for CBS News Texas:

During 2023-2024 school year he received in school suspension twice. School disciplinary records from April 2022 to May 2024 reveal that he reportedly called a teacher the B-word or used profanity. He told a school official that “He couldn’t control it and wasn’t aware that it was coming out of his mouth.” In 2024, on at least 5 occasions Austin saw a counselor regarding his anger and rage during a football game. In 2021 he got banned from attending basketball games for a season after yelling profanity at a player.

So they’re going through and listing all the naughty things Austin Metcalf did, none of which relate to his death. To recap: He told his church group he was angry. He said something mean to a teacher, although we’re not sure exactly what he said. He got angry during sporting events. He filmed some naughty videos several years before he was murdered. And in 2018, seven years before his death, when he was in elementary school, he shoved a girl to the ground.  

Again, none of these incidents prove anything. They don’t demonstrate anything about what might have happened in that tent. Unlike Anthony’s texts, these incidents don’t shed any light on motive, or intent, or anything. Cheering while someone else tackles a student does not demonstrate that you attacked someone at a track meet. Nor does telling a church group that you’re angry. And a shove that took place in elementary school, for obvious reasons, is not relevant in any way. 

Besides, if the defense brought in incidents from the past that aren’t directly related to the crime itself — and were allowed to do that by the judge — that would allow the prosecution to go into more biographical detail about Karmelo Anthony’s past. And the details of his past are far more disturbing than anything Metcalf is accused of doing. Here’s extensive reporting by Sarah Fields, who has been covering this case from day one: 

In a 75-page filing, prosecutors also note that Karmelo Anthony had earlier been accused of taking his girlfriend’s phone and, in October 2024, drafted a “to-do” list instructing her how to handle quote “weirdos,” which included the line “say sum slick like my bf kill people.”

Text exchanges further reveal that he admitted on at least two occasions to punching girls in the face.

Prosecutors located 2021 messages between Karmelo Anthony and another student discussing robbing someone for $300.

Other texts show Karmelo Anthony recounting a fight and punching someone “so hard he had to stop fighting.”

In 2023, prosecutors say Karmelo Anthony told a friend he planned to vandalize a house in Austin, Texas, writing, “I just feel like it, I gotta grudge.”

In 2021, Karmelo Anthony informed a friend he had been suspended for three days after fighting, adding, “they said next time I do sum I get recommended for expulsion,” court papers show.

In a 2023 text exchange with a friend, prosecutors have messages in which Karmelo Anthony wrote “Imma shoot the school up tmr” “with my blick,” but later followed up with “I would never actually do that.”

In a 2024 thread, prosecutors state Karmelo Anthony admitted to carrying a firearm, telling a friend before a party he would have “the gun in my pocket.”

The records also contain message threads in which Anthony mentions carrying a gun.

After multiple suspensions for fighting while in school in Louisiana, messages between Karmelo Anthony and his girlfriend surface after he moved to Frisco. 

In one exchange she suggests he simply sit for a while; he said, “yea and punch ppl maybe run sometimes,” “I have to it’s like a priority for me,” “I like punching people,” “when get mad I see red,” “when I get mad I blackout,” “when I get mad I can’t control myself.”

Prosecutors also showed messages in which Karmelo Anthony admitted to getting high and drinking alcohol and even discussed selling drugs to obtain guns.

In 2024, prosecutors say Karmelo Anthony tried to assault a teacher, stating “I put my hands in face and everything.”

Also 2024, messages recovered by prosecutors suggest Karmelo Anthony attempted to take a weapon into the State Fair of Texas, asking a friend, “if the state fair got metal detectors.”

When told that detectors were in place, the friend replied, “you got the poker”; “yea I might have to toss it,” Karmelo Anthony answered.

Prosecutors report that Karmelo Anthony confessed to stealing a watch and earbuds in separate Collin County burglaries and to bringing a weapon onto a Frisco school campus, and remarked about his girlfriend, “she went in my bag to get my computer and I said no and she still went in it and grabbed it and my gun and my knife and some other stuff fell out.”

Numerous unreleased photos and videos show Karmelo Anthony holding firearms and making threats. 

Authorities found a note on Karmelo Anthony’s phone containing a list of 

 racial tropes and slurs about Blacks, whites and Hispanics.

In one message, prosecutors say Karmelo Anthony wrote, “I hate gay ppl.”

Prosecutors add that Karmelo Anthony repeatedly threatened to murder his girlfriend in texts, including lines such as “how many bullets u want coming out of ur chest” and “I’m going to get you (expletive).”

He also threatened her with a knife in one message and told her in another, “when I stab somebody I’m gonna lick their blood off the blade.”

So we have a lengthy track record of Karmelo Anthony committing violence, fantasizing about violence, threatening violence, and showing a particular fascination with stabbing people. And then he went on to do exactly that. The jury heard none of this. 

Austin Metcalf’s alleged sins are, by comparison, generally much less serious. And certainly much less relevant to the crime. Also, he was the victim of the crime. He was not the one on trial. He couldn’t have been on trial because he was murdered. And that’s not even getting into the fact that, at trial, there was overwhelming evidence that Austin Metcalf did not attack Karmelo Anthony. 

At most, Metcalf lightly put his hands on Anthony when the latter refused to leave the tent and had threatened everyone inside with a weapon — reaching into his bag and saying “touch me and see what happens.” So there’s just no relevant comparison here. 

If the defense wants to try to make the case that Austin Metcalf had a violent character in some way, they’d need to find some witnesses to say he was known to attack people — but they’d run into a very big problem, which is that the witnesses in the tent said he didn’t attack anyone in this specific instance. So there’s really no point, even if you somehow prove that Austin Metcalf had a violent character. The fact is, in this instance — which is what the whole trial is about — he wasn’t the aggressor.

So any good prosecutor would object the moment the defense tried to bring up any of this evidence. Actually, before the trial even began, they’d file a motion to prevent any of this from being introduced into evidence. It’s clearly inflammatory and irrelevant. It’s character assassination. 

But Bill Wirskye didn’t go to the judge before the trial. Instead, he went to the defense team. And he struck a deal with them to organize a cover-up, so that he could avoid a “racial tinderbox.” He decided, as a prosecutor, to dictate the amount of information the public received about this case. 

It wasn’t a strategic decision, since very little of this testimony about Austin Metcalf would’ve been admissible. It was a political decision. He said he wanted the trial to focus solely on the events that took place in the tent, so he ignored the most damning piece of evidence in the case.

To be clear, the “racial tinderbox” in this case was created entirely by black activists who were thrilled that a white kid was stabbed to death. They ignored every relevant fact of the case. They immediately began donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to Karmelo Anthony. 

They showed up outside the courthouse and stated on camera that Austin Metcalf had it coming. They held press conferences where they attacked Austin Metcalf’s father, even before he had buried his son. 

To this day, black influencers on TikTok and Instagram are mocking the death of Austin Metcalf. This case was a “racial tinderbox” because a significant number of black people in this country clearly believe they have a right to murder white people. 

If any prosecutor caves in this scenario and prevents a jury from seeing relevant evidence to avoid contradicting the mob — or to prevent white people from realizing the extent to which many black people hate them — then the prosecutor must be fired and disbarred immediately. He has participated in obstruction of justice. He has aligned with the defense and failed to fulfill his vital role in our adversarial system of justice. Bill Wirskye needs to leave office, at a minimum. I can’t recall a more disgraceful display by a prosecutor, particularly in a high-profile case like this.

What really happened here, in case it’s not obvious, is that the prosecutors determined there was a slim chance that the judge would allow the jury to see some of this evidence about Austin Metcalf. The prosecutors thought that if a member of the jury saw that Austin Metcalf may have used the N-word at some point in his life, or may have sprayed some naughty graffiti, then they might vote to acquit Karmelo Anthony. 

In other words, because Leftists view racism as the single worst possible sin that a white person can commit, there was a concern in the prosecutor’s office that a Leftist juror would vote to acquit Karmelo Anthony solely to punish Austin Metcalf for his alleged racism. This is the level of coddling that’s taking place, for the benefit of non-white, left-wing jurors (And yes, contrary to what the media will tell you, there were indeed several non-white jurors in this case). Prosecutors are throwing their best evidence in the trash, voluntarily, in a desperate bid to prevent a juror from thinking the victim might have said something racist at some point in his life. 

And keep in mind, this was a trial where numerous black witnesses testified against Karmelo Anthony — including witnesses called by the defense. It was clear to everyone in that tent, regardless of skin color, that Karmelo Anthony was a murderer. So prosecutors were worried that, despite the mountain of evidence against Karmelo Anthony (including testimony from black athletes and track coaches), a juror would still vote to acquit him to punish Austin Metcalf’s alleged use of a bad word.

You can’t imagine a better indictment of “multiculturalism” and diversity than this. As we’ve discussed before, when you flood a homogeneous society with different racial groups from all over the world, those racial groups will start looking out for each other’s interests. And when that happens, it becomes very difficult to maintain equality under the law. Jury trials begin to break down — to the point that prosecutors, preemptively, destroy evidence so that they don’t offend certain demographics.

That’s not to defend what the prosecutors did here. Even given all of their concerns, there’s no reason to censor their own evidence. But it does illustrate the level of extraordinary, deranged anti-white sentiment that’s now dominant in this country — even in a state like Texas, which is slowly being taken over by foreigners, just like California before it. 

The thing is, when you start making backroom deals like this, they tend to blow up in your face. That’s one of the reasons prosecutors shouldn’t have done it. When you begin drafting “gentlemen’s agreements” to hide evidence, sooner or later, it will inevitably go south. And that’s exactly what’s happening right now, with this motion for a new trial.

With prosecutors like that, who needs defense attorneys? The more you think about it, the worse it gets. It’s a total betrayal. Yes, in all likelihood, once all of these legal games are finished, Karmelo Anthony is going to spend a very long time in prison — not nearly enough, but a long time. 

It’s fairly safe to say that the result of all these motions and hearings will be that Karmelo Anthony loses and justice prevails. But once that happens, and Karmelo Anthony is locked away in prison for good, there’s another very important determination that needs to be made — which is how many prosecutors in Texas and all over the country belong in prison along with him.