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By Mandy Taheri
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Karmelo Anthony, the Texas teen convicted of murder in the fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet last year, has been transferred to state prison after spending a night in a local jail.
A new Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) mugshot was released Wednesday, a day after Anthony, 19, was found guilty and sentenced to 35 years in prison. He will be eligible for parole after serving half of his sentence, or 17.5 years. His legal team has already filed a notice to appeal.
Where Is Karmelo Anthony Being Held?
Anthony is being held in Wallace Pack Unit in Grimes County. A spokesperson for TDCJ confirmed to Newsweek that Anthony will stay at the facility.
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Online posts have highlighted that the senior warden of the Byrd facility is Tallan Metcalf, with some falsely suggesting there is familial connection between him and Austin Metcalf. A TDCJ spokesperson told Newsweek "This is false. There is no relation."
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What Are Conditions Like at Wallace Pack Unit?
The Wallace Pack Unit, commonly known as the Pack Unit or Pack I, is a medium-security facility about 5 miles south of Navasota and roughly 70 miles northwest of Houston.
The prison opened in September 1983 and is named for former Ellis Unit Warden Wallace Pack, who was killed in the line of duty in 1981. The all-male facility has a capacity of about 1,400 inmates and houses offenders in general population, security detention and trusty classifications.
The Pack Unit has faced repeated scrutiny over prison conditions, including lawsuits alleging excessive heat and unsafe drinking water. In a 2014 federal lawsuit, civil rights attorneys argued that temperatures inside the facility regularly exceeded safe levels and sought an order requiring indoor temperatures to be kept below 88 degrees.
The suit alleged that extreme high temperatures in the prison were posing serious health risks, particularly for elderly, sick and disabled prisoners. It also cited nearly two-dozen heat-related deaths in Texas prisons since the late 1990s, arguing that extreme temperatures endangered inmates' health and safety.
In 2018, a federal district judge ordered the Pack Unit to install air conditioning, ruling that the TDCJ “was deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.”
Two years earlier, inmates filed a separate lawsuit alleging they were forced to drink arsenic-contaminated water while coping with extreme heat. A federal judge ordered the prison system to replace the facility's water supply.
Notorious Convicts at Wallace Pack Unit
Several notorious felons have spent time at Wallace Pack Unit over the past few decades including:
- Edward Harold Bell: sex offender who killed Marine Larry Dean Dickens and later confessed to killing 11 girls.
- Royce Zeigler: convicted killer of his stepdaughter, Riley Ann Sawyers, known as “Baby Grace.”
- Don Steven McDougal: killed 11-year-old Audrii Danielle Cunningham.
- William Neil Gallagher: the “Money Doctor” who advertised on Christian radio, stealing millions in a Ponzi scheme.
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What Did Jurors Decide?
Testimony and police records show that the confrontation between Anthony and Metcalf, who were both 17 at the time, unfolded in minutes under a crowded stadium tent during a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas, in April 2025.
An altercation began with Metcalf, who was unarmed, trying to push Anthony out from under his school’s tent, and ended with a single stab wound to Metcalf’s chest that the county medical examiner testified was not survivable.
Texas law permits deadly force when a person reasonably believes it is immediately necessary to protect against unlawful deadly force or certain grave crimes. A separate provision strips the justification from anyone who provoked the other person’s force, unless he abandoned the encounter, or clearly communicated an intent to, and the other person kept coming.
Anthony’s defense team made the argument that the killing was a moment of fear-induced self-defense as he came under attack by Metcalf, that it was not a pre-meditated act of violence.
Witnesses testified that the two teenagers did not know each other before the encounter, which lasted only minutes before turning deadly.
Anthony was convicted unanimously on Tuesday after jurors deliberated for less than three hours. It followed a week of conflicting testimony about whether the stabbing was a "provoked unjustified murder," as prosecutors argued, or a split‑second act of self‑defense, as the defense maintained.
Jurors were asked to consider "sudden passion," which instead holds a 20-year sentence.
What Happens With Karmelo Anthony's Appeal?
Anthony's attorneys filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday. The filing starts the formal appeal process, preserving the defense’s ability to challenge the conviction. Newsweek reached out to Anthony’s attorney for comment via email on Thursday.
Anthony's supporters have raised concerns about the composition of the jury, of which there were no Black members. Anthony is Black and Metcalf was white.
Several legal experts have noted that the appeal might not pertain to the evidence in the trial but whether it was properly conducted.
Charles Press, a director of Texas Law's Actual Innocence Clinic and clinical professor at the University of Texas Austin, told Newsweek in an email on Thursday: "His appellate attorneys would argue any legal issue that they believed caused an error at trial. This could be an entire range of things based upon what they see in the transcript of the case [usually it’s a different lawyer who handles the appeal than the trial attorney, not always]. One of those issues could indeed be any error they argue which occurred during jury selection, for example, if they believed that the prosecutor improperly excused jurors on the basis of their race.
"Typically, a person who’s convicted of a crime like this would have to remain in prison while the appeals process is pending. There is such a thing as an appeal bond, but I rarely see those granted in Texas."
David Coale, a Dallas appellate attorney who was not involved in the case, told CBS News, in part: "Before we even start the trial, we've got to have a jury. Did we do that right? And then once we got the trial going and heard all the evidence, did we tell the jury what to do correctly?"
He went into more detail about the defense’s juror argument, saying that “it's not so much that the jury pool is all white. The problem is when the jurors were struck...the Anthony argument is that the prosecution used it to get rid of the Black jurors." Three Black female prospective jurors were removed from the case by the prosecution prior to the trial, citing their occupations as teacher. However, the defense objected and said their removal was racially motivated.
The appellate process can take months, if not longer, as the court reviews the lower court's case. Once the notice is accepted, lawyers will begin reviewing the trial record.
“When you think about an appeal, what you’re talking about in general terms is moving away from arguments about the facts—did he or didn’t he do it? And moving into weird little legal questions,” Niles Illich, a Dallas appellate lawyer specializing in murder convictions told The Dallas Observer. The issues that are often very successful on appeal are often procedural questions; they are legal questions. They’re not the things that make great legal drama.”
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Who Was Austin Metcalf?
Metcalf was a 17-year-old student at Frisco's Memorial High School. His profile on Hudl, a sport website, says he was 6 feet tall, weighed 225 pounds and was part of the class of 2026. He played linebacker on the football team—earning MVP honors—and competed in track and field.
He had a twin brother, Hunter, who was there and tried to stop the bleeding the day he was killed. Metcalf died shortly after first responders arrived. A medical examiner later testified that Metcalf suffered a single stab wound that pierced his heart and was “not survivable.”
“You took a son, a brother, a friend, and my best friend, from this world. You took someone from me who was supposed to be an uncle, godfather to my kids. Now I want everything taken from you,” Hunter said in court.
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