The crowdfunding page that funneled roughly $630,000 to the family of Karmelo Anthony went dark Wednesday afternoon, one day after a Texas jury convicted the 19-year-old of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet.
GiveSendGo confirmed to the New York Post that it shut the campaign down because the fundraiser's stated purpose, covering pre-trial needs, was complete. The conviction ended any pretense that the money was about securing a fair trial. The family still walked away with more than half a million dollars collected over the past year.
And the donations did not stop even after the guilty verdict. More than $4,000 poured in after the jury returned its conviction, raising a question GiveSendGo's own CEO could not answer clearly: whether the Anthony family would receive that post-conviction cash.
The killing took place in April 2025 at a high school track meet in Texas. Anthony walked over and sat under a rival school's tent. Austin Metcalf told him to leave, numerous times, according to the record.
Anthony did not leave. Instead, he told Metcalf, "Touch me and find out."
Witnesses said Metcalf then pushed Anthony. Anthony drew a knife from his bag and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest. The wound was fatal. A 17-year-old athlete died at a track meet over a dispute about a tent.
Anthony claimed self-defense. He argued that Metcalf and Metcalf's twin brother had intimidated him when he arrived. The jury did not buy it. They convicted him of first-degree murder and sentenced him to 35 years in prison.
While the legal process played out, Anthony's family turned to GiveSendGo, a platform that, unlike GoFundMe, allows fundraisers tied to criminal cases. The campaign raised some $630,000 for what was described as legal and living expenses.
GiveSendGo said those funds were disbursed over the course of the past year, meaning the Anthony family collected the bulk of the money well before the trial concluded. The platform typically pays out fundraiser proceeds three days after each donation is made, so the money moved fast.
That timeline matters. It means hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed to the family of a defendant who was ultimately convicted of murder, not acquitted, not cleared, not given the benefit of the doubt by twelve citizens who heard the evidence. Convicted.
Claims surfaced that the family used some of the fundraiser money to buy a new house. GiveSendGo disputed those claims, though the platform did not publicly detail what evidence it relied on in doing so. The question of how $630,000 in donor money was actually spent remains unanswered, a gap that should trouble anyone who contributed.
The platform's post-conviction statements read like a company trying to thread a needle. GiveSendGo told the Post that hosting a campaign "has never been an endorsement of a person, their actions, their legal arguments, or their public statements." It added that a fundraiser "is not a declaration of innocence and it is not a political statement."
"GiveSendGo provides access to lawful fundraising, which we extend across the full spectrum of cases."
CEO Jacob Wells offered little clarity on the post-conviction donations. He told the Post that GiveSendGo could not "comment on the specifics of the movement of the campaign funds, just that they will be disbursed in accordance with our typical procedure." He added that the family could set up a new campaign, provided it aligned with the platform's terms of service.
Those terms bar fundraisers that promote violence or illegal activities, or that fail to explain where the money will go. Whether a new campaign for a convicted murderer's family would clear that bar is an open question. The fact that the door was left open at all tells you something about the incentives at work in the crowdfunding industry, even when the legal outcome leaves little room for ambiguity.
Anthony's case drew intense public attention, and not solely because of the killing itself. The jury that convicted him was composed of white, Asian, and Hispanic members. It had no Black members. Anthony is Black. Metcalf was white.
Anthony's supporters seized on the jury's composition. The racial dimension of the case fueled the fundraiser's growth and turned what might have been a local crime story into a national flashpoint. Supporters framed the prosecution as racially motivated. The jury's verdict, and the 35-year sentence, did not settle the argument for those who had already made up their minds.
But juries do not convict on demographics. They convict on evidence. Witnesses testified that Anthony drew a knife and stabbed an unarmed teenager in the chest after a verbal dispute and a push. The self-defense claim failed because the facts did not support it, not because of who sat in the jury box.
The pattern is familiar. A violent crime occurs. The facts point in one direction. Activists reframe the case around identity. Money flows. And somewhere in the middle, the actual victim, in this case, a 17-year-old who died at a school sporting event, gets lost in the noise. It is the same dynamic that plays out when political figures face consequences and their allies rally around grievance rather than accountability.
GiveSendGo closed its statement with a line that deserves to be read carefully: "Our hearts are with Austin's family, his twin brother, and everyone grieving a loss that no verdict can undo."
That is true as far as it goes. No verdict undoes a stabbing death. But the Metcalf family watched a platform host a fundraiser that raised more than $600,000 for the family of the person convicted of killing their son. They watched donations roll in even after the conviction. And they now face the possibility that the same platform will allow a new campaign to go live.
The crowdfunding economy has created a strange new reality in American criminal justice. Defendants have always had the right to raise money for their defense. That is not in dispute. But the scale and speed of online fundraising, combined with social media campaigns that can turn a murder defendant into a cause célèbre overnight, have warped the process. When powerful actors decide someone should be removed from a position, the system usually responds. When a convicted killer's family pockets half a million dollars from sympathetic strangers, the system shrugs.
Whether the more than $4,000 donated after the guilty verdict will reach the Anthony family remains unclear. GiveSendGo would not say. The platform's three-day payout window suggests at least some of that money may already have been disbursed before the fundraiser was pulled offline.
The case leaves several loose ends that no one involved seems eager to tie up. What Texas courthouse handled the trial? What school hosted the track meet where Metcalf died? How exactly was $630,000 in donor money spent? Did any of it go toward a house purchase, as critics alleged? GiveSendGo denied it but offered no documentation.
And the biggest question: will the Anthony family launch a new fundraiser? Wells said the option is available. In an era when removal from one platform or position rarely means the end of the story, it would surprise no one if a fresh campaign appeared within days.
The donors who sent money before the trial may have believed they were supporting a fair legal process. Some may have believed Anthony was innocent. The jury disagreed. The question now is whether the same generosity will flow to a man serving 35 years for first-degree murder, and whether the platforms that profit from processing those donations will draw any line at all.
Austin Metcalf was 17. He went to a track meet and never came home. His killer's family collected $630,000. If that does not tell you something about where American sympathies have gone sideways, nothing will.
