Austin Metcalf's father speaks after Anthony verdict

2 min readUpdated June 15, 2026

Jeff Metcalf, the father of slain student-athlete Austin Metcalf, broke his silence in the days following a Texas jury's decision to convict Karmelo Anthony of murder and hand down a 35-year prison sentence for the April 2025 stabbing death of his son at a Frisco-area track meet.

Speaking to CBS News Texas, Jeff Metcalf described waking up the morning after the verdict to a feeling utterly unlike anything he had known over the prior 14 months. "When I woke up, I felt like one million pounds had been lifted off my shoulders," he said, adding that it was the first time since his son's death that he had felt peace and comfort.

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Turning to the racial controversy that had swirled around the case online, Jeff Metcalf was emphatic that race played no role in his son's death. Those now raising doubts about how the jury was chosen or how quickly it reached a verdict, he said, were the very people who had trafficked in falsehoods about Austin from the beginning. "A lie is temporary, but the truth lasts forever," he said.

Even so, Jeff Metcalf told CBS News Texas that he had made a deliberate choice to extend forgiveness to Anthony — a decision rooted entirely in self-preservation rather than any concern for the young man who killed his son. "Forgiveness was not for him. Forgiveness was for me," he said. "So I don't carry the rage, the hate, and that around; it will eat me up like cancer."

With the legal case finally closed, he said, the work of rebuilding could at last begin — something he felt had been entirely out of reach while the proceedings were still unfolding. His family has established a scholarship in Austin Metcalf's name, according to CBS News Texas.

Austin Metcalf's father speaks out after Karmelo Anthony verdict, calls for forgiveness

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