“Forgiveness was not for him. Forgiveness was for me. So I don’t carry the rage, the hate, and that around; it will eat me up like cancer.”
Anthonywas transferred to the Wallace Pack Unit, near Houston, Texas, on Wednesday morning.
Jeff Metcalf scolded Anthony during an emotional victim impact statement, where he said, “People think grief is sadness, it is not. It is rage. Pure unfiltered rage.”
He ordered the cowardly teen to “don’t look down” before issuing a blistering tirade.“You failed your parents, you failed yourself, and you failed society … You don’t belong in this community,” he told Anthony. “A piece of me died with my son, and I’m expected to keep living.
“You’re going to prison. I forgave you the day it happened. I don’t forgive what you did,” he added. “You can’t look me in the eyes but you can stab my f–king son!”
Anthony plunged the knife, a multi-tool with a serrated blade, into Metcalf’s heart, leaving him with a 2-inch stab wound.
Anthony, a then-Centennial High School student, attacked after refusing to leave the rival Memorial High School tent at the meet. He refused to leave despite being ordered to 15 times.
But protests erupted outside the courthouse during the trial, with supporters of Anthony claiming the trial was racist against a young black teen, who had acted in self-defense.
“This was never about race,” Metcalf said. “It is about right and wrong. The public’s response sickens me … The moral decay is frightening.”
During the sentencing phase, the jury weighed the potential extenuating circumstances of “sudden pᴀssion” — crimes committed in the heat of the moment that, in Texas, can mean lighter sentences.
The jury deliberated for about three hours before delivering the guilty verdict Tuesday. The panel deliberated for another three hours before returning with the three-and-a-half-decade sentence.
Anthony’s mom Kala scoffed at the sentence, branding it “racist and biased,” and he will appeal the murder conviction.