Meghan Metcalf broke into tears Monday when a Frisco, Texas judge ordered the release of the teen charged with murdering her son and slashed the required bond to a quarter of its original level.
“On the Metcalf family’s side of the courtroom, which was also full, Meghan Metcalf, Austin’s mother, bowed her head and cried as the decision came down,” The Dallas Morning News reported Monday when Judge Angela Tucker reduced the bail of 17-year-old murder suspect Karmelo Anthony from $1 million to $250,000 and released the teen from prison, placing him under house arrest:
“While under house arrest, Tucker said Anthony will only be permitted to leave home with her permission — namely trips to his attorney’s office and meetings in court — and will need to be with an adult at all times. He is also not to contact the Metcalf family, including on social media.”
Anthony, who will be required to wear an angle monitor, is charged with stabbing and murdering Megan’s son at a high school track meet on April 2, as Fox News explains:
“The altercation unfolded under a tent at a track meet in Frisco. The arrest report from the incident said Anthony ‘grabbed his bag, opened it and reached inside it’ and told Metcalf, ‘Touch me and see what happens.’
“In the next moment, a witness told police that Anthony ‘reached into his bag and the male took a knife out of the bag and stabbed Austin.’”
If found guilty, Anthony cannot be sentenced to either the death penalty or life in prison without parole, due to a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that juveniles are not subject to such punishments.
Judge Tucker’s reduction of bail places it well below the more than $400,000 raised to-date by a crowdfunding campaign set up for Karmelo Anthony, but far less than the original million-dollar bail.
A portion of the excess cash raised will, reportedly, be used by the Anthony family to move to a new home and on “security.”