Karmelo Anthony’s Chilling Texts Exposed by Prosecutors

Carmelo Anthony reportedly fantasized about knives and stabbing someone in the hours before he killed Austin Metcalfe. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Maybe it's Mabelie. It is a bombshell update from prosecutors in an appeal hearing today over Anthony's attempt to have his murder conviction overturned. What this means for Anthony's efforts to argue that his original trial was unfair. We're on the case presented by Law and Crime. I'm Chris Stewart. You may remember back in June, during Carmelo Anthony's murder trial, there was not much testimony at all about who he is. No witnesses, vouching for his character, no talk of his background. And Anthony's new attorneys are arguing that's because his defense made a gentleman's agreement with prosecutors to only focus on the moments surrounding the fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalfe at a track meet. They wanted to, in their words, keep it under the tent. Well, today, during this hearing that's been going on to determine whether Carmelo Anthony should receive a new trial, prosecutors reportedly revealed a big piece of information that may explain why Carmelo Anthony's original defense team agreed to keep things under the tent, shocking text messages that Anthony allegedly sent related to knives and stabbing. Carmelo Anthony is requesting a new trial and today is day two of a hearing in Texas to decide if he's going to get one. He was convicted of stabbing fellow track athlete Austin Metcalfe to death at a track meet, high school track meet in Frisco, Texas in April of last year right outside of Dallas. Now, that's the body cam video of the aftermath of the incident. And you'll remember that Anthony ended up under Metcalfe's team's tent as this meet was going on. The two of them reportedly exchanging words. And when Metcalf gets up to physically remove Carmelo Anthony from that tent, he shoves Carmelo Anthony and there was that blurry surveillance video that showed it. And in response, a split second, Anthony takes a knife out of his backpack and stabs Austin Metcalfe once in the heart, killing him. Anthony's new team, a very high profile team of lawyers are arguing though that Carmelo's rights were violated during that jury trial several times. And we're going to talk about those arguments here in just a moment, including his right to a public trial. You'll remember that audio and video recordings of the proceedings were not allowed. And only a handful of media outlets like us were given credentials to be able to have someone in the courtroom to witness all of it. We had Cody Thomas from court TV, you'll remember. And you only had about two dozen people from the public who were allowed in that courtroom. Now, the judge who made the call as far as those restrictions on the case, he's actually been tossed from overseeing Anthony's appeal and we'll talk more about that here in just a moment. But I need to get to these tax messages and evidence that prosecutors talked about today. And these are things that the jury did not know about. I mean, none of us knew about it until now. You have local media outlets like WFA and NBC DFW who are in the courtroom today for this hearing who are giving information, live updates about a lot of the testimony that's happening. And we have to talk about what assistant district attorney for Colin County, Bill Wersky had to say and what he claims happened in the hours before this track meet on the day that Austin Metcalfe lost his life because he says that Carmelo Anthony's girlfriend hours before told an assistant principal at their high school that the couple had broken up and that she said she allegedly was afraid. She claimed that Carmelo Anthony was stalking her. WFA says that the ADA also claimed today in the courtroom that Anthony was allegedly obsessed with guns, fights and knives and prosecutors allegedly have a text message that Anthony sent where he fantasized about stabbing someone and licking the blood off the blade. And he allegedly sent a text that said quote, I'm low key on the verge. Anthony stabbed Austin Metcalfe to death hours later. The jury never heard that. The ADA also reportedly says that Anthony had gone to a program for juveniles when he was younger who struggled with anger. That was something that was not presented in court during his trial. Now this appears to be the reason that prosecutors and Carmelo's defense made what they're calling a gentleman's agreement not to insert character testimony into the case. Again, they're calling it a gentleman's agreement. The assistant district attorney for Colin County reportedly said that the deal went both ways because in exchange for not talking about Carmelo Anthony's ex-girlfriend that text message his life when he was still living in Louisiana where he went to some sort of juvenile program for young people who struggled with anger. They say that there were things that the defense didn't bring up about Austin Metcalfe's past. The ADA says that Metcalfe allegedly put quote, "vile racist stuff on graffiti." And that was not presented to the jury. The defense alleges that Metcalf also had a history of being aggressive. And that was something that the defense for Carmelo Anthony they weren't able to talk about during the trial. Now the reason the prosecutor said that this deal was reached between both sides, it was not to add fuel to the fire. And you saw the amount of attention during this trial from individuals that typically aren't covering true crime. I mean, there was political talk of this. This made its way into racial discussions in this country. And the prosecutor says they didn't want any of that to factor into what was happening in the courtroom. Now the defense is arguing though, this gentleman's agreement, and I'm talking about Carmelo's new defense, they're arguing that the agreement restricted witnesses from being able to testify that could have helped Carmelo Anthony tell his side of the story. Like an expert on epilepsy to talk about how that impacted, in their opinion, Carmelo Anthony's potential perception of a threat. He was diagnosed with epilepsy apparently. Here's another part of it. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just clump to a hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. But record of it. It wasn't written out. It was only verbal between both sides because they did not want the media, for example, getting wind of it and reporting about it as the build up to this trial went on. So there's a lot of layers to this story as you know if you're joining us here now. So I do want you just before we get into a little bit more about this. I'm going to have Vinnie Politan from Vinnie Politan Investigates, Core TV. He's going to be here in a moment. I want you to write down a promo code for me on the case, get you a full month free of law and crime plus using that code. Unlocks exclusive access to our case files. We have a very big file for the case of Carmelo Anthony. I believe there's some body cam video on there. Of course, a ton of documents, things for you to see. We have several files, by the way, of a lot of high profile cases and true crime. You can listen to jail calls, watch interrogation videos, see body cam recordings and read court documents from the biggest cases and true crime. And you can do it yourself. Plus you get to watch shows for both law and crime and Core TV add free. So go to law and crime plus dot com enter promo code on the case and claim your free month right now. Okay, turning back to Carmelo Anthony here. Another argument that Anthony's new legal defense team is making in their appeal is looking at whether Anthony was someone who had his rights violated when he did not testify in his own defense. Now in a lot of self defense cases, you see the person who's involved in the altercation get on the stand and tell their side of the story. But that didn't happen in this case and the defense says on the last day of witness testimony in this trial. So right before Carmelo would have testified in his own defense, the prosecution declared that gentleman's agreement deal dead because they say the prosecution that the defense had already violated that deal and open the door back during opening statements because they mentioned that Carmelo Anthony liked playing chess. Now the defense says that that Carmelo was then given after the prosecution said everything's on the table. Carmelo Anthony was given 10 minutes to decide whether he wanted to testify in his own defense. And now that we know what prosecutors allegedly had like those messages and the situation involving his girlfriend, talk of stabbing, fantasizing about those things, you know, a history where potentially he was in some sort of program for kids who struggled with anger. All of that without this deal, that was going to be on the table. Would have been fair game. And the defense said that because of that, Carmelo decided not to testify in his own defense. And to this point, the rest is history. In a lot of ways, the jury took three hours, found him guilty of murdering Austin Metcalf and Carmelo Anthony is now serving as much as 35 years in a Texas prison. Now before I get any politician on here again from court TV, I also want to talk about another big development that came in the last day in this case because the judge who oversaw the original trial is John Roach. He's been removed from overseeing this appeals process. Carmelo's legal team says that Roach was biased toward the courtroom verdict. And in interview with local TV station WFAA TV and this was days after the verdict, this is part of what Roach said. - You know, they did, you know why? Because they were picked based upon the law. They listened to the facts. It happened here in this very courtroom. And they got a verdict. And so that's the process. And whatever they say, they get it right. - And on Wednesday, a judge decided that it would be best for Judge Roach to be recused in this case. All right, let's bring in Vinny Politan, host of Vinny Politan Investigates, VPI on court TV's YouTube channel. Good to see you Vinny. - Good to see Chris. - Yeah, who we are, right? - Well, and you know, I remember because Cody Thomas was in the courtroom for us during this trial. And each day that we did a recap is kind of like, where's the meat about who Carmelo Anthony is? And like, why are they not talking about his background? All, like, can't they try and like soften him a bit? You know, they mentioned he played chess in the opening statements. And then like, there was really nothing else. And like, then we learned about this deal. And you're like, why would you make that deal? And then today prosecutors, according to the reports that we're getting from local TV stations of the courtroom, talk about these text messages that Carmelo Anthony sent in the hours before he killed Austin Metcalf. And that certainly provides a little bit of context as to why the defense attorney who at the time we're recording this, he is on the stand. Mike Howard would reach this deal with prosecutors. - Yeah, it's, it's an, I can understand the deal. Like, I understand why I guess both sides would kind of want it all right. We'll just stay away from this for both sides. Then we'll move forward and focus on what happened under the tent in those moments. But it does a couple of different things in terms. Somebody's gonna lose the trial. So somebody's gonna be angry. But if prosecutors lose, they don't get to appeal. So it always falls on the other side, right? So you've lost the trial. Now you start taking a look back at everything that happened. And this is the opportunity to take another look and try to get another bite at the apple and question the decisions that were made first time through. But when you think about that evidence, I mean, that evidence is, would be powerful. If the jury heard about what he was allegedly texting about beforehand, involving knives and blood. And that would be very problematic for Carmelo, Anthony and his defense. Understandably, they want to do everything they can to keep it out. But usually these are the types of issues that it's not like a handshake deal. Okay, you don't do this, we won't do that. It's like you have hearings before the trial and the judge decides what's admissible and what's not admissible. Like a deal like this sounds very unusual to me, especially in a high profile case like this. For there to be some sort of handshake deal on, you don't do this and we won't do that. And we'll just go forward as opposed to what evidence should lawfully come before the jury and what evidence should not lawfully come before a jury. That's the way it's done like in almost every other case, which again, that in and of itself could become a problem here for this case. Well, it seems like it goes both ways too. And I don't know which one would have been more damning. I mean, certainly the idea that Carmelo Anthony allegedly was talking about knives in the hours before, it was going through this breakup, which like you look at someone's state of mind, I mean, he's potentially having a bad day already. He's tense and then he has this. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Maybe it's Maybelline knife. And then he sends a text message saying that he was on the verge. You know, I mean, that there and then hours later, if that was presented to the jury and you're sitting there, you're like, okay, I can see why the defense was like, let's just do everything we possibly can, that this does not reach a jury. On the other hand, apparently Austin Metcalf, according to prosecutors had a history when it came to some racist graffiti and that could have been inserted in the trial. So that was kind of the agreement back and forth. But if I'm a juror today on this, and though they reached the decision of Carmelo Anthony being guilty of the murder of Austin Metcalf, I still would have felt today a little bit jipped where it's like I would have appreciated understanding. Like that to me is major context of what led up to being under the tent. And I would be frustrated that there was a sense, that he used in the word gamesmanship, 'cause that's like a sports term. And we're talking about lives and murder and all of that. But the fact that there is some, and I'm just looking at updates here from NBC DFW, saying that Mike Howard, the defense attorney, described what he called a shadow docket and an old school way of conducting legal business. Like I'd be frustrated as a juror that that was something that was decided and that was kept away from me as a juror trying to decide whether or not a young man should spend several decades in prison. - Yeah, and what do we do? We bring in members of the public to come in. They don't sign up for it. They don't volunteer. It's part of their civic duty, but they come in and their job is to figure out the truth. And then we keep important facts away from them. So are we really like a search for justice is supposed to be a search for the truth. But how do you get to a search for the truth when significant facts and factors, and like you said, context are kept from the jury. They really can't do their jobs. And this is one place where I've for years I've railed against the system. I've always said more is better in front of the jury. They're always doing this test of prejudicial versus probative and we sort of shield and put blinders on the jury so often. But I think jurors are smart and I think they can put things in perspective, but sometimes we don't allow them, but usually, and again, to me, the real problem here is that it was not a judge making this decision. It was the prosecution and the defense making this gentleman's type of old school agreement. That's strange. Yeah, that's bizarre and there's a reason why it's old school. It shouldn't be part of any new school. It shouldn't be part of the way a case is tried, right? You want the evidence in, put it in front of the judge and let the judge decide whether or not it should lawfully come in based upon what the law and the case law of the state is. And then if that judge made a mistake, let the court above them, the appellate court, take a look at it. Don't like figured out for yourselves because it's not good for the people of the state for the prosecution and you're not doing them any justice and you're not doing justice for your client either. Well, I think here's one other line too from the NBC DFW update. Quote, Howard agreed with Wilson, who's one of the new appellate attorneys kind of part of this new higher profile legal team that Camelo Anthony has. Camelo Anthony was not present at the off-record hearings he alleges took place. So like this negotiation was made amongst attorneys and who knows what the conversations were with Camelo Anthony. But, you know, these are, you know, I'm sure Camelo Anthony would not have wanted the text message he sent about allegedly stabbing, you know, to be included. But it just seems like, and I know you hire an attorney that like these legal decisions are being made behind closed doors. And it seems like it really backfired on them in the end because the way that Camelo's new legal team describes what happened is pretty much it's time to decide whether Camelo Anthony's going to test to find his own defense and a self-defense trial and the prosecution says, actually, you mentioned Camelo likes chess in opening statements several days ago and that violates the agreement that we're going to keep things under the tent and only talk about the altercation. So everything now is on the table. And if you put your client on the stand, we will be bringing up the fact that he sent these messages, that he went to some sort of juvenile program to control his anger when he was younger, they say. And, you know, again, no matter what people think about the verdict, it just seems like a backdoor handshake. We're not going to put it on paper because we-- don't want the media to find out. It just kind of rubs you the wrong way. Just being on the outside of it, I'm not a lawyer, but it just, you know, as someone who tries to think like a juror, again, that's just something that it feels, feels like that context in hindsight. And I don't know how that factors into the decision. It just doesn't rub me the right way. No, it's going to be problematic. I mean, regardless of what the decisions made here to motion for a new trial, if the defense loses here, it's part of the appeal. It's not good. It's not the way the system should work. Everything should be above board. There should not be secret deals or, you know, handshake agreements. If you want the evidence in, put the evidence in. If you don't want the evidence in, don't put it in. That's what the judge gets paid to do to make those decisions. That's the way it's set up. You, as the defense, are supposed to do anything and everything to get evidence in front of the jury to protect your client. The prosecution is supposed to have a search for the truth and put the evidence in there that demonstrates what really happened. And when they start engaging in gamesmanship and the defense engages in gamesmanship and the defendant is kind of left out of the loop of all that, that's a problem. That's a violation of his rights, not by the state, but by his own attorney. And that becomes a huge problem. And it's a, it's a stain on the case at this point and very well could undermine the entire trial, which they'll have to do over again if this thing is overturned at any point. So you have Judge John Roachie yesterday was accused from this. And I know I've used the term appeal, like what we're talking about here, this is a motion for a new trial. So just for people, non lawyers like myself, like where are we in the state of like we have this two day hearing, may go another day at the time we're recording this about all these concerns the defense has. Carmelo has already filed a notice of appeal. Like what happens next in terms of the efforts of Carmelo Anthony and his team to try and get his conviction thrown out? Yeah. So this is really the first bite at the apple, right? If you're a criminal defendant and you lose, you go before the same judge who oversaw the trial and you ask for a new trial based upon mistakes that were made. And it's rare that it gets. Imagine setting your makeup then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline New York. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just clump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline New York. Granted because you're basically asking the trial judge to redo the trial that he just did because he or she made some mistakes along the way, right? So it's like a it's like a judge overturning himself or herself and and that's kind of why you don't usually win these. But in this case because the judge has recused himself and is out of the loop, you've got a new judge that is hearing this. So it's almost like getting an actual appeal because you're going before a different judge on issues involving the trial court. So that's step one. If they lose here, then they've filed the notice of appeal. That's the process that takes a little bit longer because you've got to get filed the notice of appeal. You've got to get the transcript of the trial. Then you've got to write these very meticulous briefs and there's a briefing schedule that is set up for each side to file their papers and respond to the other side. Then they set up oral arguments and then the appellate court listens to the oral arguments and then they somewhere down the road make their decision. This will be a lot quicker. This is the first bite of the apple, but it's not the last if Carmelo Anthony loses. And the other argument, you know, one of a couple that his new legal team is making is concern about how there was no video that was allowed to be recorded. We couldn't live stream this trial. There was no audio recording that was allowed. Like we didn't hear what this testimony sounded like. And prosecutors are saying the reason for that. Like in some ways, the security issue, you know, you did have a judge, the original judge on this case, she got doxed. I remember that in the very beginning. There was concerns about safety because this was such a racially charged case. You saw influencers on the outside, which we're talked about today during this hearing, people who are trying to monetize off of murder. And prosecutors say that's the reason why the judge made the decision to limit access to the trial. And each state is different. State like Florida, you're going to get access, you know, almost every single time, federal court, you don't in Texas is kind of hit or miss by the county. There were also concerns about, you know, there's only so many seats allowed in the courtroom. And so a lot of members of the public returned away every single day. How strong of an argument? Because I recognize like there's only so many seats in a courtroom. And some states allow it more than others. How strong of an argument is that his right to this public trial was violated by this judge with the decisions that he made. And I've seen arguments like this in other jurisdictions, in other cases where they've limited the public's access. And when we talk about the media, the media is really just sort of a representative of the public, right? It's, it's a public trial. And that's what you're entitled to. And there's case law in Texas about it, talking about a fair and open public trial. So once you start limiting the openness of the trial and the publicness of the trial, it becomes a problem. And that absolutely happened in this case. And yes, they have all these concerns. But guess what? That's part for the course. You sign up to be a judge. There's going to be cases that are, that are, you know, controversial or or cases that the public is invested in. That's just the nature of it. Like that is part of the job. You're a public official overseeing a public case. And I think what we saw here is very similar to sort of the old school deal that was taking place. It's like these folks, we're taking care of it. We don't want the rest of the world to see what's happened in here. This is the way we do justice here. And that doesn't fly anymore. It's 2026. And I think this is going to be potentially another big, big problem in this case, having shut the public out and not provided reasonable access to a case. And especially a case like this, all the arguments that they're making why it should be limited is the reason why it should be open. All the public interest is the reason why you want more transparency. So the public can understand how the system is working or not working so they can gain an ability to trust the system and see it in action. So when you limit something because there's so much attention, like that's self-defeating. The whole reason for the public trial is when there is public interest in the case. So I think it's another problem here. And another potential reason that this case at some point may be overturned. And that's the thing. I mean, even if you feel like, because in some ways, like though we didn't know a lot about what happened outside of the tent, use that term of like on the outside, like it seemed like from witness testimony, we know that there was an altercation. We know that Austin Metcalf shoves Carmelo. You can see it in that blurry surveillance video. And then Carmelo responds with this stabbing. And in terms of self-defense, it didn't seem like it would be that strong of an argument for Carmelo Anthony. But now there's all this stuff on the outside. And it's like, we'll see if it has an impact on this case going forward. Just lastly, Vinnie, the judge, he was accused from this case. He gives this interview a couple days after the verdict. And in that interview, he gives this answer, you know, here's the judge who restricted media access and all of that for whatever reason. But then he's asked, do you think that, you know, this was a fair verdict in the case. He says it was fair because the jury reached it and it was a fair trial. And then Carmelo's team argues, well, that shows bias to the verdict that happened in your courtroom. You know, your judge is often taught. You don't. What did you make of, I guess, why would he do this interview? I'm shocked. I'm absolutely shocked. You don't want the world to see you working, you know, attempting to do your job on the bench. But then you'll let them see you when you can control the conversation and you do an interview with the media. It's bizarre. It's rare. Most, I mean, there's some states where the judges never talk about cases that they're involved in. In some instances, they may talk about them after the case has gone through the entire appellate process. But this one didn't even go through the motion for a new trial and he's speaking already. Very unusual, unorthodox, and in most states, you would never, ever see that happen. So I was surprised and potentially another problem in the case for this conviction to be upheld. It's just another problem, the judge himself. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. Zelda mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Try new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Mavily. And we'll see what happens next. We're keeping an eye on these updates as they continue to come in as Carmelo Anthony tries to have his murder conviction overturned. Vinnie Palatine host of VPI Vinnie Palatine Investigates can Catch him over on Court TV's YouTube channel. Always good to have you, Vinnie, thanks for being on this. - Great to see you, thanks. - That will do it for on the case, presented by Law & Crime. Subscribe to us on YouTube and Spotify, and we are also streaming on Peacock. I'm Chris Stewart. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)