Previously unseen messages describing stabbing fantasies, photos of the defendant holding firearms, and racist material found on his laptop are surfacing from the Karmelo Anthony murder case, raising hard questions about what the original jury was allowed to consider.

Anthony, now 19, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison on June 9, 2026, for the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a Texas high school track meet on April 2, 2025. The conviction followed testimony from multiple witnesses who said Anthony was guilty. But a wave of newly disclosed trial evidence, reported by journalist Breanna Morello and detailed in a Breitbart report, paints a picture far darker than the courtroom proceedings initially revealed to the public.

Collin County prosecutor Bill Wirskye found that Anthony had told people he had a fascination with the idea of stabbing someone to death and licking the victim's blood off the blade. An October 2024 message attributed to Anthony describing exactly that scenario was displayed by prosecutors at a new trial hearing, evidence the original jury never saw. Additional messages attributed to Anthony referenced guns, knives, and starting fights.

Prosecutors also recovered photos of Anthony holding firearms and found racist hate material on his laptop that included attacks directed at blacks, whites, and Mexicans. None of this reached the jury that convicted him.

Anthony's girlfriend described stalking and a foreboding text before the killing

Morello's reporting revealed that Anthony's girlfriend, whose name has not been publicly disclosed, told investigators that Anthony was going through a bad breakup with her and had been stalking her in the period leading up to the stabbing. She described receiving a foreboding text from Anthony that read: "I'm low key on the verge."

The track meet confrontation itself followed a pattern the evidence now makes harder to dismiss as spontaneous. Anthony entered Metcalf's school tent uninvited and, according to the New York Post, refused to leave after being asked approximately 15 times. Anthony told Metcalf, "Touch me and see what happens." After Metcalf shoved him, Anthony stabbed the 17-year-old in the chest.

Anthony's defense attempted a self-defense claim at trial. The jury rejected it and convicted him of murder.

After his arrest, video captured Anthony telling police plainly: "I'm not alleged. I did it." He also reportedly told officers, "He put his hands on me so I stabbed him."

A trial judge's TV interview cost him his seat on the case

The case took a sharp procedural turn when trial judge John Roach was removed from the proceedings. Roach had appeared in a post-trial television interview and, when asked whether the jury got it right, answered: "Yeah, they did."

A visiting judge ruled that Roach's impartiality could reasonably be questioned, and retired Judge Michael Chitty was assigned to oversee the new trial hearing. Anthony's lawyers called the removal a vindication, saying the ruling "answers a fundamental question: whether a reasonable fully informed observer would see Judge Roach's conduct and believe that he could fairly and impartially consider a motion for new trial." The judge's removal handed the defense a significant legal victory and opened the door to a possible retrial.

Fox News reported that the new trial proceedings also exposed a disputed oral agreement between the defense and prosecution. Criminal defense attorney Clint Broden described the arrangement, which may have prevented Anthony from testifying in his own defense, as "almost unheard of" in a murder case. Anthony's attorney said the defendant ultimately chose not to take the stand because he feared prosecutors would "find a reason to open the door" to damaging character evidence, including the very texts and photos now becoming public.

Politicians and celebrities picked sides, before the evidence was public

Long before these trial details surfaced, the case had become a political flashpoint. Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico appeared on The Breakfast Club and backed Anthony, calling his conviction proof that the justice system "is not working for black Texans." Talarico pointed to the jury composition, noting that the judge allowed prosecutors to strike all three black jurors from the pool.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that Talarico admitted he was "not an expert on this particular case", then declared the absence of black jurors was "the only evidence you need." That framing ignored the confession, the texts, the photos, and the testimony of minority witnesses who said Anthony was guilty.

Dr. Umar Johnson went further on a podcast, claiming Metcalf had "fell" onto Anthony's knife rather than being stabbed. Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith publicly rebuked that claim, calling it a distortion of the evidence.

"What's inescapable and what's undeniable is that Karmelo Anthony said, 'He put his hands on me so I stabbed him,'" Smith said. "Under no circumstances, based on the evidence of what has happened, did it warrant him stabbing somebody in the chest."

Rapper Cardi B weighed in as well, arguing that "black kids now need to be told not to argue with white kids because it's too dangerous." Rep. Jasmine Crockett also publicly defended Anthony, adding another elected Democrat to the list of officials who took the convicted killer's side before the full scope of evidence reached the public.

Witnesses who testified against Anthony were minorities, a fact that complicates the racial narrative

Morello's reporting noted that the witnesses who testified at trial that Anthony was guilty were themselves minorities. That detail cuts directly against the framing adopted by Talarico, Crockett, and others who cast the conviction as a product of racial bias in the courtroom. If the jury heard from minority witnesses who described what they saw and concluded Anthony was guilty, the absence of black jurors, while a legitimate procedural question, does not erase the substance of the evidence.

The broader picture now emerging from the trial record is difficult to square with a self-defense narrative. A defendant who texted his girlfriend he was "on the verge," who allegedly fantasized about stabbing someone and licking blood from the blade months before the killing, who entered another student's tent uninvited, refused to leave more than a dozen times, issued a threat, and then stabbed a 17-year-old in the chest does not fit the profile of someone acting in fear for his life.

Anthony himself did not claim innocence. He told police he did it. The question now before a new judge is whether procedural errors, the jury composition, the unwritten deal that may have kept Anthony off the stand, the judge's public comments, warrant a new trial.

Austin Metcalf was 17 years old. He does not get a new trial. He does not get a defense team. The politicians and celebrities who rushed to turn his killer into a cause never had to look his family in the eye. The least the system owes that family now is a record built on the full truth, not a narrative shaped by what was convenient to leave out.