A 35-year-old Texas parole supervisor lost her job with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice after posting inflammatory statements on Facebook about the family of Austin Metcalf, the 17-year-old fatally stabbed at a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas, in April 2025.

Donna Murray Robinson, a Houston native who identified herself on social media as a parole supervisor with TDCJ, wrote that she did not care about the Metcalf family's grief, and openly celebrated the teenager's death along racial lines. The posts surfaced after Karmelo Anthony, 19, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison for the stabbing.

Robinson's bosses caught wind of the posts, and the department fired her, a TDCJ spokesperson told the Dallas Morning News. The agency did not equivocate. It said her words disqualified her from the work she was paid to do.

What Robinson posted

Screenshots of Robinson's now-deleted Facebook account, obtained by the Daily Mail and reported by the New York Post, show a series of statements that went far beyond any defensible opinion about the case. Robinson wrote:

"I for one don't give a f** about the family's loss."

She continued in a separate post:

"It's about time these f***ing [sic] bigots feel the pain that they have inflicted on other groups of people since the beginning of time!"

And then this:

"I'm just glad we didn't have to bury another black child. Let them start burying some of theirs for a change. F***'em [sic] I said what I said."

Robinson also claimed Anthony would be "protected" by fellow inmates in prison. She did not respond to requests for comment from either the Dallas Morning News or the Daily Mail.

The killing at the track meet

The case that prompted Robinson's outburst was already one of the most closely watched in Texas. In April 2025, Austin Metcalf was at a high school track meet in Frisco when a rain delay pushed athletes into team tents. Anthony, who was not part of Metcalf's team, sat down in Metcalf's team's tent.

Metcalf repeatedly told Anthony to leave. Anthony refused. Witnesses said Anthony told Metcalf, "Touch me and find out." When Metcalf pushed him, witnesses said Anthony pulled a knife and stabbed the 17-year-old in the chest.

Metcalf died in his twin brother's arms.

A Texas jury convicted Anthony of first-degree murder and handed down a 35-year sentence. Anthony has since appealed both the conviction and the sentence.

TDCJ's response

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not try to minimize what Robinson did. A spokesperson told the Dallas Morning News that employment with the department "carries significant public trust and requires decisions free from personal bias."

The agency's full statement went further:

"These statements are incompatible with TDCJ policy and values. They demonstrate bias and a lack of the impartiality essential to the fair administration of justice in Texas."

TDCJ added that "discriminatory or inflammatory conduct that erodes public confidence in the criminal justice system will not be tolerated."

That language matters. Robinson was not some bystander sounding off. She was a parole supervisor, a person whose professional judgment directly shaped whether convicted offenders returned to communities or stayed behind bars. Every case she touched now carries a question mark.

A pattern of excuse-making

Robinson's posts did not emerge in a vacuum. Since Anthony's conviction, a string of public figures has tried to reframe the case. A related headline from the New York Post noted that U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett described Anthony as a "scared black boy" who was not shown "mercy." A radio DJ, Peter Rosenberg, drew criticism for suggesting Anthony deserved a lighter sentence.

None of those commentators held a position of authority inside the Texas criminal justice system. Robinson did. She was not offering legal analysis or policy criticism. She was cheering a teenager's death and casting it as deserved racial payback, while collecting a state paycheck funded by the same taxpayers whose trust she was supposed to uphold.

What remains unanswered

Several questions hang over the case. The exact date of Robinson's firing has not been publicly disclosed. Neither has the precise date or time of her Facebook posts. It is unclear how many cases Robinson supervised during her tenure, or whether TDCJ plans to review any of those cases for evidence of the bias she displayed so openly online.

The name of the TDCJ spokesperson who confirmed the firing has not been made public. And no court filings or docket numbers related to Anthony's appeal have surfaced in available reporting.

Those gaps matter. If Robinson's bias was this naked in public, the question of what it looked like behind closed doors, in parole hearings, risk assessments, supervision decisions, is one Texas officials cannot afford to ignore.

Accountability came, but the damage is done

Credit where it is due: TDCJ acted. Robinson is gone. The agency's statement was direct and left no room for ambiguity. That is more than some government agencies manage when employees embarrass them.

But the episode exposes something deeper. A state parole supervisor felt comfortable enough to post, under her own name and job title, that she was glad a 17-year-old was dead, and that his family's grief was deserved because of their race. She did not hide behind an anonymous account. She did not couch it in euphemism. She said it, tagged it with her credentials, and dared anyone to object.

That level of confidence does not develop overnight. It develops in an environment where people believe the culture around them will tolerate it, or even agree.

Austin Metcalf's family buried a teenager. A jury heard the evidence and delivered a verdict. The system worked the way it is supposed to work. And a state employee with authority over people's liberty responded by mocking a dead child's family and framing a convicted murderer as a hero.

TDCJ fired the right person. The harder question is whether she was the only one who needed firing.