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Through every trial, wars, divisions and cultural change, men and women of faith in America have turned to God for wisdom and strength. As we look forward to the next 250 years, we as a nation must be committed to prayer because living up to these ideals as a country begins on our knees. Commit with us at Alliance Defending Freedom. To pray For America, visit joinadf.com pray250 or text Pray250 to 83848 to sign up. Still waiting in line again. That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with stamps.com over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com join them to save up to 90% off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office for a limited time. Go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply.
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North Texas father is talking about the pain of suddenly losing his son his son was stabbed at a school track meet in Frisco and police have made an arrest.
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That's so criminal. A high school track meet should be one of the places where a teenager can hang out without a worry. But at this track meet in Frisco, Texas, the team tents lining the stadium, the place where athletes gather to prep, rest and wait for their events, became a crime scene. A 17 year old standout athlete died in his twin brother' arms. His killer claimed self defense. And 433 days later a Texas jury would decide the teen's fate. While fake reports, online rumors and competing narratives flood social media, this is the story of the Carmelo Anthony trial. I'm Lyndon Blake and you're listening to that's so Criminal. This story gets started Wednesday, April 2, 2025. We're at Kirkindall Stadium in Frisco, Texas and it's just before 10:00am There's a district track meet happening right now. It's a little rainy outside so a lot of the athletes are hanging out under their team tents just to set the scene for track meet. You have these tents that are lined up throughout the stadium where teams are drinking their Gatorade, getting some food, just hanging out between events. You have parents in the stands, student athletes, coaches all around. And among the athletes are two 17 year old boys, Austin Metcalfe and Carmelo Anthony. Now these two do not go to the same high school. They've actually never met before. They're strangers. But there is a single fateful meetup under a Team track tent that changed their lives forever. Austin Metcalf was under his tent, which again, Memorial High School, when Carmelo Anthony walks over this tent, and according to police reports, Austin Metcalfe was like, hey, man, leave our tent. You don't go to school here. What happens next only takes a few moments, but it will alter countless lives forever. Carmelo Anthony, when he's asked to leave the tent, he, for whatever reason, doesn't. Instead, Carmelo Anthony grabs his backpack and he puts his hand in it, and he looks at Metcalf and says, touch me and see what happens. Now, according to Frisco police, no one here thinks Carmelo Anthony has a weapon. I mean, heck, we're at a high school track meet. Who would? He's an athlete there competing. He's not there to cause trouble. That's what everyone thinks. I've covered high school sports now for well over a decade. And if you go to a high school basketball game, baseball game these days, you have to walk through a metal detector that would pick up something like a knife. But somehow Anthony is here with the weapon, a three and a half inch knife. Witnesses who spoke with Frisco police, they have slightly different accounts of what physical contact actually happened between the two. There's one witness that said Austin Metcalfe touched Carmelo Anthony. Another said Austin actually grabbed Carmelo. But either way, an altercation ensued. One armed with nothing, and Carmelo Anthony armed with a three and a half inch knife. He pulls this knife out of his bag. He stabs Austin Metcalfe in the chest, so hard, mind you, that the medical examiner says this single stab pierced Austin Metcalfe's heart. Right after this, Anthony turns and he runs. He runs out the bleachers and back into the chaos of the track meet behind him. There's Metcalf in the bleachers, clutching his chest. He looks at his friends, he looks for his teammates, and he utters these words, get help. Well, by the time Frisco police officers get to where Metcalf is, he's unconscious. He's not breathing. He's sitting there dying in his twin brother's arms. Paramedics, they take Austin to a nearby hospital. But at this point, there's nothing that could be done. Austin died there at his high school track meet in his twin brother's arms. Before this day ends, Carmelo Anthony is tracked down. He's arrested and officially charged with murder. That's so criminal. But this case would not stay contained to a police report or a courtroom. Within days, it would explode online and the story of what happened under that tent that day would become the center of a much bigger battle.
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This episode is brought to you by Prime. What if you had one more chance with the one that got away?
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Sam, you Came Home.
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Based on the best selling novel from Carly Fortune. Every Year after follows childhood friends Sam and Percy as they reunite in the dreamy, nostalgic lakeside town of Berry's Bay. Love can be hard to find. So if you're lucky enough to find that person, never let go. A second chance at First Love Every Year after now streaming only on Prime.
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So at first, this case not getting too much media attention. In fact, it was only picked up by local stations in Dallas. But two days later, on April 4, the Frisco Police Department releases its initial report and the case blows wide open. In this report, police say that Anthony admitted to the stabbing. But Carmelo Anthony claims it wasn't murder. He claims it was self defense. In the days that followed, the community just divided. Their justice for Austin Metcalfe protest, then their justice for Carmelo Anthony protest. One of the flyers for that one said charge Hunter Metcalf, Austin's twin brother. This is actually a true story. I still have the pictures of those flyers on my cell phone. This is one of those cases where social media starts to explode with false narratives about what happened April 2. There's even a fake autopsy report that said Austin died of a drug overdose. The Frisco police had to respond to this because the false drug overdose claim was gaining so much traction. So they had to put out a statement and say, hey, that autopsy is fake and please stop spreading false information. Race becomes a big talking point because Carmelo Anthony is black and Austin Metcalfe was white. And almost immediately, Austin's dad, Jeff Metcalf said, please stop trying to make this about race.
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I want to clarify something right off the start because I've already heard some rumors and gossip. This was not a race thing and this is not a political thing. Please do not comment. If you do not know what happened. Try. Do not turn this into a racial thing. It was not. Do not politicize this. It's not. This is a human being thing.
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So you have these protests, you have these fake narratives on social media. Now you have the Metcalf family being hit with a slew of these fake swatting calls, six to be exact, about shootings that made police show up at the family's home all while they're trying to grieve their son's death. And during all this chaos, the wheels of the legal system start turning. Initially, a judge sets Carmelo Anthony's bond at a million dollars. But on April 14, just two days after Austin's funeral, a bond reduction hearing is called. And the judge agrees to reduce Anthony's bond from a million dollars down to $250,000. And under the conditions of his release, Anthony Anthony is placed under a strict house arrest at his parents home. Now Carmelo Anthony's family home becomes a big talking point on social media because it's in this gated neighborhood, it's a nearly million dollar home. And people are like, wait, why are you doing this fundraising for your son's legal fees if you live in this house? So the Anthony family at the time had that fundraising website set up on GiveSendGo. And they started to catch a lot of heat for, for their nice house. So while they're catching heat for this house, while they're raising money for Carmelo's legal fees, they decide to hold a press conference on April 17. This is just five days after Austin Metcalfe's funeral. And Jeff Metcalf, Austin's dad, decides to show up at the press conference. And it didn't take long for him to be literally escorted off the scene. And while Carmelo Anthony's mom said her heart goes out to the Metcalf family, Carmelo Anthony's lawyer did not like this surprise appearance by Jeff.
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All I'm going to say so it don't be asked later, is that was disrespectful and just shows you all the character. He was not invited. He knows that it's inappropriate to be near this family, but he did it. And so I say to people, actions speak louder than words, okay?
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Jeff Metcalf later said that he went to that press conference just to represent his side in this tragedy. For weeks, the public heard competing versions of what happened. But in June, select members of the media finally got a glimpse at the one thing everyone wanted to see. The surveillance footage.
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Your call has been forwarded to voicemail.
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Hi, this is Zoe Deutch and Nick Robinson.
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Sometimes life rigs things in our favor, like learning about your new favorite rom com. Voicemails for Isabel, only on Netflix. June 19th.
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So remember, we're in Texas and this happened at a school event. And under the Texas open records law, Frisco Independent School District allows Select members of the media to view the surveillance footage captured at Kirkindall Stadium on the morning of April 2, when the murder happened. But there's a catch here. The media can't record this. They cannot broadcast it. They can only write down on paper what they see. So In June of 2025, two months after the murder, an investigative producer with CBS News sits in a room. She watches the footage and writes exactly what she sees. The camera angle in this surveillance footage is up high. It's near the press box in the stadium, so you can't make out individual faces. And it's a wide shot, remember of a bustling track meet. That's happening. But in the video, at approximately 9:55am a sudden violent disruption happens under one of the tents in the bleachers. There's a sharp movement, two figures interact. It's brief and almost instantly you see the crowd dynamic shift. Several people are seen walking or running away in a panic while others begin to converge on the area, realizing something terrible has just happened. The next time this video would come into play would be the trial. Shortly after this video is seen by some media members. On June 24, 2025, the state makes its position clear. Collin County District attorney Greg Willis announces that a grand jury has officially indicted Carmelo Anthony on a charge of murder. It's a first degree felony and if convicted, the now 19 year old faces anywhere from five to 99 years behind bars. It will be nearly a year later before the trial kicks off on June 1, 2026. No cameras in the courtroom, which in my opinion is good for nobody. There's no audio recordings, no cell phones. Just a judge and the jury. That's so criminal. And when the evidence comes in, the jury would have to answer one central question. Was this self defense or murder?
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the prosecution's goal was clear prove to the jury that a deadly weapon was brought to a school sporting event with malice, leaving a 17 year old athlete with no way to defend himself. The defense claimed self defense. Carmelo Anthony's team argued that this altercation between Austin and Carmelo was basically just this pressure cooker. Of escalating tension. They claimed that Carmelo felt physically threatened by Austin. Carmelo was in fear. The evidence was laid out. The jury saw the knife. They saw the autopsy photographs. And Collin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Elizabeth Ventura showed the graphic photos to the jury of Austin's single stab wound, the wound that pierced his heart. She said that that three and a half inch knife blade created a large, gaping and unsurvivable injury. Then there was the video evidence. This evidence we mentioned earlier. That same surveillance video was shown to the jury and those from far away. In the video, you could still see the incident between Austin and Carmelo. The video is grainy, as reporters described it inside the courtroom, but it showed the jury that this incident was one on one. This was not an ambush attack on Anthony. The prosecution, they would go on to press witnesses about this exact thing because Carmelo claiming that he was surrounded prior to the stabbing, it just did not add up. When you looked at the video during this trial, there were witnesses of all races called to the stand that described the stabbing of Austin Metcalfe. Witnesses testified that Austin pushed Carmelo and then Carmelo whipped out his weapon. Other witnesses testified that it was Carmelo who was the aggressor the entire time. Another witness that was called by the defense said that at first, no one underneath the Memorial High School tent had a problem with Carmelo being there. But then the witness said the Metcalf twins asked Carmelo to leave after both sides gave their testimony. The defense rests its case without Carmelo Anthony taking the stand. It's June 9, 2026, the final day of the trial. And on the final day, a twist comes in. In the last minutes ahead of closing arguments, lawyers in the case agreed to add manslaughter to the charging documents. So this means there's a lesser charge now on the table. Manslaughter is less than murder. And a manslaughter conviction only carries two to 20 years behind bars. Closing arguments. They proceed. Then the jury deliberates. Did Carmelo Anthony fear for his life when he stabbed Austin Metcalfe? Was this self defense or senseless? Less than three hours later, the jury had their answer.
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Carmelo Anthony is found guilty of murder, not the lesser charge of manslaughter murder. And while what happens next is not typical, the judge immediately went into the sentencing phase of the trial. Everyone was kind of thrown off by this, so I had to reach out to a powerhouse criminal defense attorney, Mark Garagos, and ask, why did they do this so quick? He said one word, Texas. So the jury is back in the deliberation room deciding whether CARMELO Anthony gets 5 years, 99 years, or somewhere in between for the murder of Alston Metcalfe. And again, less than three hours later, the jury reaches their unanimous decision. The judge goes back into a packed courtroom, and he reads Carmelo Anthony's sentence in front of both families. Carmelo Anthony is sentenced to 35 years behind bars for the murder of Austin Metcalfe. Carmelo will be up for parole after just 17 and a half years, the same amount of time Austin had on this earth. Austin Metcalf's dad, Jeff, who was put under a gag order during the trial, finally got to say his peace after the sentencing alongside Austin's twin brother Hunter, and Austin's mom, Jeff. When he stood up, he was angry. He was ready to address his son's killer. Here is some of what he said in his victim impact statement. Jeff said with a gag order, I can't defend myself when people want to tear down my son's memory. That time is over. I said from day one, this was never about race. It's about right and wrong. We are all humans. We all bleed the same color. You will face those consequences starting today. As Jeff spoke directly to Carmelo, he said he has forgiven him like he said from day one, but he believes accountability was necessary. Jeff said, you failed your parents, yourself, and society. You don't belong in this community. Speaking directly to Carmelo, he said he has forgiven him like he said from day one, but believes accountability was necessary. You failed your parents, yourself, and society, he said. You don't belong in this community. He then added, you can't look me in my eyes, but you can stab my son. This is a sad, sad situation. And even though the trial's over, this story will have narratives spun from it for years. But at the end of the day, a teenager was killed at a track meet by another teenager armed with a knife. And for what? Nothing. As Of Wednesday morning, June 10, 2026, Carmelo Anthony has been placed in isolation. So as of now, he is not around any other inmates because officials at the jail fear for Carmelo's safety. I'm Lyndon Blake, and you've been listening to that's so Criminal.