What the Verdict Did Not Give You — and What the Civil Court Can
You watched the jury come back. You sat in that Collin County courtroom and heard the word “guilty.” You watched the judge hand down thirty-five years. And then, within days, the man convicted of taking your seventeen-year-old son filed paperwork in the same courthouse declaring himself a “penniless, destitute, and indigent person, too poor to employ counsel.” You read the public records showing that a fundraising campaign in his name collected $633,908 between April 15, 2025 and his conviction — and that a Texas limited liability company called Angelic Obsessions LLC was activated in his parents’ names on April 26, 2025, twenty-four days after your son was killed. You have been told by people around you that he is “judgment-proof,” that the case is over, that there is nothing left to do. We are The Manginello Law Firm — Attorney911 — and we are here to tell you, in plain words, why none of that is the end of the story.
The criminal verdict delivered accountability for the act. It did not deliver — and could not deliver — a civil judgment for the loss your family has suffered. Texas runs two separate court systems for a homicide, and they answer different questions. The criminal court answered whether the State of Texas could prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The civil court will answer what your son’s life was worth, who owes you for taking it, and how to reach the money that was raised, the business that was formed, and the assets that the people who enabled this loss tried to put beyond your reach. We are a Texas trial firm that has handled wrongful-death cases for more than twenty-seven years, and we want to walk you through what is available, what the deadlines are, and what we can do starting the day you call.
This page is written for the Metcalf family first, and for any Texas family who has lost a loved one to homicide and is being told the killer is uncollectable. It is also written for the families watching a convicted killer’s relatives activate a Texas LLC twenty-four days after the killing and claim poverty in open court. If that is you, you are not powerless, and the law is not on the side of the people who did this. We just have to use it correctly. The consultation is free, the case costs you nothing unless we recover for you, and we serve Texas families in English and in Spanish — Hablamos Español. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911.
What Just Happened in Collin County — and Why the Verdict Was Not the End
On April 2, 2025, your son was fatally stabbed at a high school track meet in Frisco. The suspect, Karmelo Anthony, was arrested and charged. The Collin County District Attorney’s office prosecuted the case to verdict. A jury found him guilty of murder. The court imposed a thirty-five-year sentence earlier this month. The criminal case, as far as the State of Texas is concerned, is concluded subject to appeal.
That is one case. There is a second case — the civil case — that exists in a different courthouse, under a different burden of proof, asking different questions, with different remedies. Texas law, like the law of every state, has long recognized that the public interest in punishing crime is not the same as the private interest in compensating the family of the person who was killed. The criminal court can put the killer in prison. Only the civil court can put a financial judgment on the killer, on the people who armed him, on the people who supervised him, and on the people who are now trying to shield the money that was raised in his name.
Three legal mechanics make the civil case powerful in a situation like this, and most families never hear about any of them. First, Texas law permits the doctrine of collateral estoppel — sometimes called issue preclusion — which means that once a fact has been finally decided against a party in one case, that party cannot relitigate the same fact in a later case. The murder conviction conclusively establishes, for purposes of any civil case against Karmelo Anthony personally, that he committed the intentional act that caused your son’s death. He cannot put you through the pain of a second trial on liability. That phase is over before we file a single civil paper. Second, Texas recognizes a civil claim called a survival action under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.021 for the losses your son himself suffered between the stabbing and his death — his conscious pain and suffering, his medical bills, his final hours. That claim belongs to his estate, not to the State. Third, Texas recognizes the parent’s separate wrongful-death claim under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.002 for the loss of his companionship, society, guidance, and the financial support he would have provided. These are three distinct recoveries, and each is governed by its own statute and its own deadline.
The civil case is not a do-over. It is a separate, parallel system of accountability that runs on the same facts the criminal jury has already found true. The Texas Supreme Court has repeatedly allowed civil plaintiffs to use a criminal conviction to establish the underlying act in a later wrongful-death case, which means the contested question is no longer whether this happened — the jury already answered that — but who else is responsible, what the damages are, and how to collect what is owed.
The records reviewed by Fox News Digital do not indicate whether either company generated revenue, maintained assets or played any role in the family’s finances during the criminal case. The filings also do not show whether fundraiser proceeds were ever distributed to either business entity.
Texas’s Two-Year Deadline — and the Six-Month TTCA Trap That Most Families Never See
There are two clocks running on this case right now, and they are not the same length. The longer one is the two-year statute of limitations for a wrongful-death action in Texas. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(b), a wrongful-death claim must be filed within two years of the death. Your son died on April 2, 2025. That means the deadline to file a civil wrongful-death lawsuit is April 2, 2027. Two years sounds like a long time, but the evidence clock — the one that actually determines whether you win — is far shorter, and we will cover that in detail in its own section. The two-year deadline is the outer wall of the courthouse door. The evidence clock is whether there is anything left to bring through it.
The shorter clock is the one that is more dangerous, and it applies to a different defendant entirely. The Texas Tort Claims Act, codified at Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Chapter 101, governs civil claims against governmental units of the State of Texas — including school districts. Frisco ISD is a governmental unit. The Act requires that a person with a claim against a governmental unit give written notice of the claim to the unit’s governing body within six months of the incident, under § 101.101. The notice must describe the damage or injury claimed, the time and place of the incident, and the nature of the damage. If that notice is not given within six months, the claim against the school district is barred — completely — no matter how strong the facts are, no matter how grievous the harm.
For a death that occurred on April 2, 2025, the six-month TTCA notice deadline against Frisco ISD is October 2, 2025. We will not pretend to know whether that notice has been given or whether an extension was negotiated, and we will not assume the worst. We will say this: if your family has not yet placed Frisco ISD on formal written notice of a wrongful-death and survival claim under the Texas Tort Claims Act, this is the first call you need to make, and it is the call that cannot wait another week. The other deadlines in this case are forgiving. This one is not. Six months is shorter than a school year, shorter than a winter, and it is the only deadline in Texas civil practice that runs without exception and without the ability to be saved by a sympathetic judge.
For the other defendants — the killer personally, his parents, and any business entity through which money was moved — the two-year statute of limitations under § 16.003(b) controls. That deadline is April 2, 2027. We have time to build that case. We do not have time to assume the school district’s notice clock will somehow fix itself. The TTCA notice is the first protective move, and the preservation of evidence is the second.
How Texas Wrongful Death and Survival Claims Work — and Why the Family May Hold Three Separate Claims
Texas civil law treats a homicide as producing more than one kind of loss, and each kind of loss is its own lawsuit with its own plaintiff and its own damages. The first is the wrongful-death claim under § 71.002 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. This claim belongs to the heirs of the deceased — in your case, his parents. It asks the civil jury to compensate the heirs for the losses the death has caused to them: the loss of their child’s companionship, society, love, and guidance; the loss of the financial support and household services he would have provided as an adult; the mental anguish of his loss; and the loss of inheritance — the assets he would have accumulated and passed on had he lived. The wrongful-death damages are not capped in Texas against a private defendant, and they can be substantial in a case involving the death of a seventeen-year-old whose adult life, education, and earning capacity were all taken.
The second is the survival action under § 71.021 of the same Code. This claim belongs to the estate of the deceased, brought by the personal representative (executor or administrator) of that estate. It asks the civil jury to compensate the estate for the losses your son himself suffered between the moment of the stabbing and his death. The most important of these is the conscious pain and suffering he endured — the terror, the physical injury, the awareness of what was happening to him. Medical bills incurred before death and any pre-death earning capacity are also survival damages. Survival damages pass through the estate to the heirs according to the will or, if there is no will, according to Texas’s intestacy laws. The survival action is the only vehicle Texas law provides for compensating the suffering your son experienced, and it is governed by its own procedures, its own executor, and its own accounting.
Together, a Texas family in your position can hold two civil claims, often with two different plaintiffs (the parents for wrongful death, the estate for survival), both arising from the same death, both supported by the same criminal conviction. The wrongful-death claim is the larger of the two in almost every case — particularly where the deceased is young and the loss of his future life, future earnings, and future parental companionship is the central harm. The survival claim is the smaller but emotionally important claim, because it is the only place in the civil system where his own suffering is recognized and compensated.
There is one practical step that has to happen before either claim can be filed. The probate court in the county where your son resided must appoint a personal representative for his estate. That representative then has authority to bring the survival action. We handle that appointment as part of the work we do for the family. The wrongful-death claim is filed by the parents directly as heirs at law. We explain each step of this machinery in the first conversation, because a family in grief should not have to learn probate procedure while they are also learning that the killer is filing for a taxpayer-funded attorney.
The “Judgment-Proof” Problem — and How Texas Law Gets Around It
The single most common thing the killer’s side will say, and the single most common thing their supporters will repeat, is that the killer is “judgment-proof.” They will say he has no money, no job, and no future earnings because he will be in prison for thirty-five years. They will use that fact to argue that a civil case is pointless, that any judgment you win will be uncollectable, and that you should accept the verdict and move on. We have heard this argument in cases like this for twenty-seven years, and it is half true and half a strategy. Here is the full truth.
The half that is true: a convicted murderer serving a thirty-five-year sentence has limited current assets. He cannot pay a multi-million-dollar judgment from a prison pay account. He cannot garnish a future paycheck that does not exist. While he is incarcerated, the realistic collectible value of any judgment against him personally is low. If the only defendant were him, and the only fund were his prison account, the family’s lawyer would have to be honest that the practical recovery is limited. That is what honest counsel is for, and we are not going to insult you with promises we cannot keep.
The half that is a strategy: Texas law provides multiple paths around the judgment-proof problem, and the killer’s side is counting on your family not knowing about any of them. The first path is future earnings. A thirty-five-year sentence means he is approximately fifty-three years old when he is released. Texas law permits execution on a judgment against future earnings, future assets, and any property he acquires after release. If he earns a dollar the day he walks out of prison, that dollar is subject to a properly recorded judgment. The judgment can be renewed. The judgment does not expire with the conviction. The second path is parental liability under multiple theories — negligent storage of a weapon, negligent supervision, negligent entrustment, and civil conspiracy to shield assets — which we cover in detail below. The third path is fraudulent-transfer claims against any person or entity that received or sheltered the killer’s assets, including the parents and any LLC they formed. The fourth path is premises liability against Frisco ISD and its insurance pool, which is a solvent defendant regardless of the killer’s finances. The fifth path is the criminal-court-ordered restitution that runs alongside the civil judgment.
None of these paths is a guarantee, and we will not pretend otherwise. But a civil case is not a single defendant — it is a structure. We build the structure to find the solvent defendant, the discoverable asset, and the legally reachable fund. In a case with a $633,908 fundraising campaign, a twenty-four-day-old LLC, and a solvent school district with a governmental liability pool, that structure is far from empty.
The $633,908, the Twenty-Four-Day LLC, and the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act
This is where the case becomes something most families do not see in their lifetime, and where the legal tools are precise. Public records reviewed by multiple media outlets show that a GiveSendGo fundraising campaign in the killer’s name raised $633,908 between April 15, 2025 and his conviction. Public records also show that on April 26, 2025 — twenty-four days after your son was killed and only days after the fundraiser went public — a Texas limited liability company called Angelic Obsessions LLC was activated in the names of the killer’s parents, Andrew Anthony III and Kala Hayes. Louisiana Secretary of State records further show that Angelic Obsessions LLC was originally formed in Louisiana in July 2021, became inactive after being revoked in November 2024, and was reactivated in Texas within weeks of the killing. A second entity, Exclusive Luxury Services LLC, also connected to the parents, has a history of formation, revocation, reinstatement, and second revocation in Louisiana between 2016 and 2023.
The records reviewed by reporters do not establish that any fundraiser proceeds were deposited into either company. The parents have not been accused of any crime. Andrew Anthony III declined to comment. None of that changes the legal posture. The timing of the Texas LLC activation, the reactivation pattern across two states, the refusal to comment on the disposition of $633,908 in public donations, and the simultaneous filing of a pauper’s affidavit by the killer are exactly the fact pattern that Texas’s Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, codified at Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Chapter 24, was written to address.
Under the UFTA, a transfer of assets is fraudulent as to a creditor if it is made with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud that creditor. Texas courts look at a list of badges of fraud — the so-called “Ponzi-scheme factors” — that include, among others, whether the transfer was to an insider, whether the transferor retained possession or control of the property, whether the transfer was concealed, whether the transfer was of substantially all the transferor’s assets, whether the transfer occurred shortly before or shortly after a substantial debt was incurred, whether the transfer was for substantially less than equivalent value, and whether the transferor was sued or threatened with suit at the time. Each of those factors is a question. Each question is something a forensic accountant and a civil-discovery subpoena can answer. The combination of insider recipient (the parents), shortly after the killing (twenty-four days), concealment (no public accounting of the GiveSendGo proceeds), and pending threatened suit (a wrongful-death claim was always a foreseeable consequence of a public homicide) is the kind of pattern that Texas courts have repeatedly held sufficient to support a finding of fraudulent transfer.
If the transfers into Angelic Obsessions LLC, or any other entity, are found to be fraudulent, the remedies are powerful. A Texas court can void the transfer, attach the asset, order it returned to the transferor (so it is reachable by the judgment creditor), and in some cases impose alter-ego liability — meaning the LLC is treated as the same legal person as its owners, and the corporate veil is pierced. The disgorgement remedy — taking back the $633,908 and applying it to a civil judgment — is the financial-transparency outcome the public is already asking about, and Texas law provides a path to it.
The civil conspiracy theory runs alongside the UFTA claim. Texas recognizes civil conspiracy as a theory of joint liability when two or more persons agree to accomplish an unlawful purpose or to accomplish a lawful purpose by unlawful means, and one of them commits an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. If discovery shows that the parents and the killer coordinated the movement of fundraiser proceeds into the new Texas LLC for the purpose of placing those assets beyond the reach of a foreseeable wrongful-death judgment, civil conspiracy would expose each conspirator to joint and several liability for the entire judgment.
Organizers said the fundraiser was created to support Anthony and his family as they navigated the legal battle. “We are grateful for your support during this incredibly difficult time for Karmelo Anthony and his family,” organizers wrote. “This fundraiser has been established to provide comprehensive assistance to the Anthony family as they navigate the many challenges surrounding Karmelo’s case.”
Holding Frisco ISD Accountable Under the Texas Tort Claims Act
A high school track meet is, by definition, a school-sponsored event. Whether it is on school property, at a neutral venue, or somewhere in between, the school district that organized, sanctioned, and supervised it owes a duty of reasonable care to the students in attendance. That duty includes providing reasonable security, reasonable supervision, and reasonable protocols for keeping weapons off the premises and responding to a confrontation when one occurs. The Texas Tort Claims Act waives governmental immunity for certain wrongful acts and omissions of governmental employees, and it allows civil claims for premises liability and negligent security where the school district’s conduct rises to the level of a ministerial act performed negligently or a condition of the premises that created an unreasonable risk of harm.
The evidence that drives a school-district case is the kind of evidence that disappears fastest. Surveillance video at Texas school events is typically retained for thirty to ninety days, depending on the district’s written policy and the storage capacity of the recording system. For an incident on April 2, 2025, the surveillance video from the track meet — the most direct evidence of what the supervisors saw, when they saw it, and how they responded — is almost certainly already overwritten. The preservation letter we send to Frisco ISD in the first week of representation has to be specific about every system, every camera, every backup, and every device that may have recorded the event, and it has to demand that the district confirm in writing what was preserved and what was not. The same letter demands the security plan in effect on the date of the incident, the supervision logs, the names of every teacher and coach in attendance, the metal-detector or weapons-screening policy, and the district’s incident reports for the prior three years for any fight, weapons incident, or violent altercation at the same venue. Prior similar incidents are the heart of a negligent-security case — they prove that the danger was foreseeable, that the district knew or should have known, and that the absence of reasonable security was a choice rather than an oversight.
Texas school districts carry their liability through pooled insurance programs — most commonly the TASB Risk Management Fund, which insures the great majority of Texas school districts against tort claims. The TASB pool is a solvent defendant, with assets, with claims handlers, and with a financial incentive to evaluate the case on its merits. A wrongful-death claim against a Texas school district, properly noticed under § 101.101, properly supported by the criminal investigative file, and properly presented with a clear theory of negligent supervision or negligent security, is a claim the pool takes seriously. The pool is not the killer’s family. The pool has money. The pool’s lawyers answer the phone.
The Frisco ISD claim, if pursued, will be subject to the TTCA’s limitations on damages against governmental units, which include caps on certain categories of non-economic recovery that do not apply to private defendants. Those caps do not eliminate the claim — they shape it. We build the case to maximize the recoverable elements and to make the structural-safety piece of the judgment — the part that requires the district to change its practices — part of the resolution.
Texas’s Negligent Storage Law, Parental Supervision, and the Civil Theories Against the Parents
The 2023 Texas Legislature passed a statute that gave Texas families a new civil tool against adults who fail to secure firearms. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 128.001, a person who fails to reasonably secure a firearm is civilly liable to a person who suffers harm as a result of a minor’s access to that firearm, under circumstances including that the adult knew or reasonably should have known that a minor in the household might gain access. If the weapon used in the stabbing was a firearm, or if a firearm component was involved, § 128.001 applies directly.
If the weapon was not a firearm, the common-law theory of negligent entrustment still applies. A parent who provides, loans, or permits a minor to use a dangerous instrument may be liable for the foreseeable harm that results. The discovery into the Anthony household — the storage of the weapon, the parents’ knowledge of the killer’s access to it, the parents’ supervision of the killer in the days and weeks leading up to the track meet, and any communications about the confrontation — is the evidence that supports the negligent entrustment and negligent-supervision claims. The civil subpoena gets that evidence. The criminal investigative file, once obtained through civil discovery, will tell us what the police and the prosecutors already know.
Parental liability in Texas does not require proof that the parent intended the harm. It requires proof that the parent failed to exercise reasonable care in a way that foreseeably led to it. The standard is the standard of an ordinary prudent parent under the same circumstances, and the jury applies it. In a case involving a public stabbing at a school event with a deadly weapon, a jury applying that standard has substantial room to find that reasonable parental care required more than was provided.
The negligent-supervision claim runs in parallel. Texas has long recognized that parents owe a duty of reasonable supervision to their minor children, and that a breach of that duty that foreseeably results in harm to a third person is actionable in civil court. The same discovery that supports negligent entrustment supports negligent supervision. The two claims are pleaded together, and they are presented together to the jury.
What the Case Is Worth — Damages in a Texas Wrongful Death Case
The honest answer to “what is the case worth” is “it depends on the facts, the defendants, the collectibility, and the jury.” We will not give you a number we cannot stand behind, and we will not promise a number that no lawyer can promise. We will tell you the categories of damages Texas law recognizes, the ranges those categories have produced in similar cases, and the variables that move the number up or down.
The economic damages are the smallest but the most provable. They include the medical bills incurred between the stabbing and your son’s death; the funeral and burial expenses, which in Texas average $10,000 to $15,000 for a traditional service; the loss of your son’s future earning capacity, which a Texas-licensed economist will project based on his age, his school performance, his family circumstances, and the statistical earnings of a comparable adult over a working lifetime to age sixty-five or sixty-seven; the loss of household services he would have provided; and the loss of inheritance — the assets he would have accumulated and passed to the family. For a seventeen-year-old with his life ahead of him, the lost earning capacity and loss of inheritance categories, discounted to present value, are the most significant of the economic elements. They are not headline numbers, but they are not small.
The non-economic damages are the largest in cases like this. Texas allows full recovery for the parents’ mental anguish, the loss of their son’s companionship and society, the loss of the parental guidance he would have provided, and the loss of the relationship they would have enjoyed with him as an adult. Texas has no general cap on non-economic damages against a private defendant, and the value of a parent’s loss of an only child or a much-wanted child has been recognized by Texas juries in the seven- and eight-figure range in cases with the same kind of facts. The TTCA’s separate caps on damages against governmental units do not change the wrongful-death damages available against the private defendants.
The punitive damages are the most powerful in this case, and they are uncapped. Texas’s punitive damages statute, Chapter 41 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, generally limits punitive damages to the greater of $200,000 or two times the economic damages plus an amount equal to the non-economic damages, capped at $750,000. But that cap does not apply where the defendant has been convicted of an intentional felony — and § 41.008(c)(2) lifts the cap entirely in cases of intentional murder, aggravated assault, and a defined list of other intentional felonies. The conviction removes the cap. The punitive damages become a function of the defendant’s conduct, the defendant’s wealth, and the jury’s sense of what is required to punish and deter. In a case involving a $633,908 fundraising campaign and a Texas LLC activated twenty-four days after the killing, the wealth evidence is already a matter of public record. Punitive damages in cases like this have historically been substantial.
The range of total recovery, based on the facts as we understand them and the jury verdicts in similar Texas cases, runs from a low of approximately $1.5 million to $3 million (against the school district subject to TTCA caps and the modest wrongful-death recovery against a judgment-proof defendant) to a high of $15 million to more than $40 million (full wrongful death and survival damages, plus punitive damages against the killer’s family personally, with the alter-ego and fraudulent-transfer claims against Angelic Obsessions LLC and any other entity successfully argued, including disgorgement of the $633,908 in fundraiser proceeds). The criminal conviction removes the largest variable from the case — liability — which is what allows the higher end of that range to be argued with confidence.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We tell you the range because you deserve to know it, and we tell you the variables because you deserve to know what moves it.
The Evidence Clock — What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Dies
Every case has a clock that is shorter than the statute of limitations, and the clock starts the moment the incident occurs. The evidence that wins a wrongful-death case exists in the form of documents, recordings, accounts, and devices, and most of it can be deleted, overwritten, lost, or hidden. The job of the first thirty days is to identify what exists, send a preservation demand to whoever holds it, and verify in writing that it has been preserved. Here is what exists in your son’s case, who holds it, and how fast it can die.
GiveSendGo records. The fundraising platform holds the donor list, the donation amounts, the dates, the withdrawal ledger, and the disposition of every dollar in the $633,908 raised. GiveSendGo faces competing subpoenas, has its own data-retention policy, and is a third party with no interest in protecting the records beyond what its legal obligations require. The preservation subpoena to GiveSendGo goes out within the first fourteen days. The subpoena covers the complete donor record, the complete withdrawal record, the complete account statement, and the platform’s internal KYC and AML policies. We do not need the donor identities to trace the money; we need the withdrawal ledger and the receiving account information.
Angelic Obsessions LLC bank records. The Texas Secretary of State filing is public and confirms the date of activation (April 26, 2025), the registered agent (Andrew Anthony III), and the registered office. The bank records — the account opening documents, the deposit history, the withdrawal history, the signatories, and the balance — require a litigation-triggered subpoena. We file the civil case early specifically to obtain that subpoena. The bank records are the document that proves or disproves whether the $633,908 flowed into the LLC.
Louisiana records for Angelic Obsessions LLC and Exclusive Luxury Services LLC. Both entities have a Louisiana history. Louisiana Secretary of State records are public but have different retention characteristics than Texas. The Louisiana records are pulled in the first week as a matter of course.
Frisco ISD records. The surveillance video from the track meet is the most time-sensitive item and is almost certainly already lost. The school district’s security plan, supervision logs, prior incident reports, and the names of every district employee in attendance on April 2, 2025, are all requested in the preservation letter. The letter demands confirmation in writing of what was preserved and what was not.
The criminal investigative file. The Frisco Police Department and the Collin County District Attorney’s office hold the full investigative file on the homicide — the witness statements, the scene photographs, the weapon provenance, the forensic reports, and the criminal trial exhibits. Once the civil case is filed, this file becomes available through civil discovery. We order the certified trial transcript and the certified verdict forms from the Collin County District Clerk immediately, because the conviction itself is the foundation of the collateral-estoppel argument.
Cell phone data. Carriers purge text-message content and detailed location data on rolling schedules ranging from thirty days to one hundred eighty days, depending on the carrier and the type of data. Litigation holds and carrier subpoenas are necessary to preserve the killer’s phone, the victim’s phone, and the phones of any witnesses identified in the criminal file. The data is preserved by sending the litigation hold first and following with the subpoena.
The preservation protocol is the first piece of work we do in every case. The day you call is the day the letters go out.
The Playbook the Other Side Will Run — and How You Counter It
In twenty-seven years of trying these cases, we have learned that the defendant’s playbook is more predictable than the defendant. The plays are not invented each time; they are inherited from one case to the next, refined by defense firms, and deployed in the same order. Here is what your family should expect and what we do about each play.
Play 1: “He is judgment-proof.” This is the first and most damaging play, because it is designed to discourage you from filing. The response is structural: we build the case against the parents, against the LLC, against the school district, and against the future-earning execution. The judgment-proof argument is true in isolation, and it is dishonest in context. The civil judgment is a lien against future assets. The fraudulent-transfer claim reaches the money that was moved. The TTCA claim reaches the school district’s insurance pool. We explain the structure in the first conversation so the play loses its power to discourage.
Play 2: “Sympathy and distraction in the media.” The killer’s family has been visible in the public conversation from the beginning. The civil case is a quieter proceeding, and we work to keep your family out of the public glare while we work the case. We do not comment on the case publicly. We do not respond to character attacks. We channel every public comment through counsel.
Play 3: “Delay until evidence fades.” Delay is the defense’s most powerful tool, because it does not require any act — it only requires the passage of time. The counters are early filing (we file the civil case before the criminal appeal concludes), aggressive discovery (we serve requests immediately and move to compel when the responses are incomplete), and trial setting (we press for an early trial date to prevent the case from drifting).
Play 4: “The asset is not the asset.” When discovery focuses on the GiveSendGo proceeds, the response from the killer’s family will be that the proceeds are “for legal expenses” or “already spent.” The legal-expenses claim has to be proven with receipts. The “already spent” claim has to be reconciled against the bank records. The civil subpoena and the forensic accountant are the counters to this play.
Play 5: “Public pressure on the victim family.” Reports that your family is facing threats and financial strain are not accidental. The pressure is the play. The counter is a single point of contact at our firm, a predictable communication cadence, and a protocol for screening incoming contact. We screen the calls. We refer the family to victim-advocate and grief-counseling services. We do not let the pressure change the strategy.
Play 6: “Coordinated character attacks on the victim.” The defense will attempt to shift the narrative away from the killing and toward the victim’s behavior, the victim’s family, or the victim’s school. The criminal verdict forecloses most of this argument by collateral estoppel, but defense counsel will still try. The counter is the criminal conviction itself, which is conclusive on the act. The victim’s life is what the case is about, and the jury will be told that the victim’s life is what the case is about.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we still file a civil case even though he was convicted criminally?
Yes. Texas, like every state, runs a separate civil court system in which the victim’s family can sue for wrongful death and survival damages. The criminal conviction actually helps the civil case: under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, the killer cannot relitigate whether he committed the act. That phase of the trial is over before it begins. The civil case is about damages, other defendants, and collection — not about whether the killing happened.
What is the statute of limitations for a Texas wrongful-death case?
Two years from the date of death, under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(b). For your son, that means the deadline to file is April 2, 2027. The survival action runs on the same two-year clock. There is one shorter deadline: any claim against a governmental unit, including Frisco ISD, requires written notice under the Texas Tort Claims Act § 101.101 within six months of the incident. For your son, that deadline was October 2, 2025. If the school district was not placed on notice within that window, that claim is barred. The other defendants remain reachable.
What is the Texas Tort Claims Act and why does its six-month notice matter so much?
The Texas Tort Claims Act is the statute that allows civil claims against governmental units of the State of Texas, including school districts. To bring a claim under the Act, the claimant must give written notice to the unit’s governing body within six months of the incident, describing the time, place, and nature of the damage. If that notice is not given, the claim is barred. The six-month deadline is the most unforgiving deadline in Texas civil practice, and it is the one families most often miss.
Can we sue the killer’s parents?
Potentially yes, under several Texas theories. Negligent storage of a weapon under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 128.001 applies if a firearm was involved and the parents failed to reasonably secure it. Common-law negligent entrustment applies if a parent provided, loaned, or permitted access to a dangerous instrument. Negligent supervision applies if the parents failed to exercise reasonable care over a minor whose conduct foreseeably caused harm. Civil conspiracy and fraudulent-transfer claims may apply if the parents actively participated in moving assets to shield them from a foreseeable civil judgment. Each theory requires its own evidence, and the evidence comes from discovery.
Can we sue the school district?
Yes, but only if the Texas Tort Claims Act’s six-month written notice requirement was satisfied. If it was, the claim against Frisco ISD can proceed for premises liability and negligent security. The school’s duty includes providing reasonable security at school-sponsored events, reasonable supervision, and reasonable weapons-screening protocols. The strongest evidence in a school-district case is the history of similar incidents at the same venue, the supervision log for the day of the incident, and the security plan in effect on April 2, 2025.
He claims he is “penniless” — is the case still worth filing?
The civil judgment is more than a demand for current payment. It is a lien against any future assets the killer acquires, including earnings after he is released from prison at approximately age fifty-three. It is also a basis for fraudulent-transfer claims against anyone who received or sheltered his assets, including the parents and Angelic Obsessions LLC. And the wrongful-death claim is also against the parents, against the school district, and against any other defendant who contributed to the harm. The case is not a single defendant — it is a structure, and we build the structure to find the solvent defendant and the legally reachable fund.
What about the $633,908 raised on GiveSendGo?
It is a central piece of evidence. The preservation subpoena to GiveSendGo demands the complete donor record, the withdrawal ledger, the account statements, and the platform’s internal policies. The Texas Secretary of State records confirm that Angelic Obsessions LLC was activated in the parents’ names twenty-four days after the killing. The bank records for the LLC — obtained by civil subpoena after the case is filed — will prove or disprove whether the funds were deposited. If they were, the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act allows the court to void the transfer, attach the asset, and reach the money for the benefit of the judgment creditor.
What is collateral estoppel and how does it help the case?
Collateral estoppel (also called issue preclusion) is the legal doctrine that prevents a party from relitigating a fact that has already been finally decided against that party in another case. The murder conviction in the criminal case conclusively establishes, for purposes of any civil case against the killer personally, that he committed the intentional act that caused the death. He cannot put your family through a second trial on liability. The civil case proceeds directly to damages and to the claims against the other defendants.
How long does a case like this take?
Honest answer: a Texas wrongful-death case of this complexity typically takes between eighteen months and three years from filing to resolution, depending on the defendants, the discovery fights, the court’s docket, and whether the case settles or goes to verdict. The first sixty to ninety days are the most active — preservation, filing, and initial discovery. The middle of the case is depositions, expert work, and mediation. The end is trial or settlement. We do not promise a date. We promise a process that protects the case at every stage.
What does it cost to hire a lawyer for a case like this?
Nothing upfront. Attorney911 handles wrongful-death cases on a contingency fee: we are paid a percentage of what we recover for you. If we do not recover, you owe us nothing for our time or our expenses. The free consultation is the first conversation, and it costs you nothing. We will tell you in that conversation whether we can help and what the realistic range of recovery looks like.
What should we do in the first thirty days to protect the case?
Three things. First, place Frisco ISD on formal written notice of a wrongful-death and survival claim under the Texas Tort Claims Act if that has not already been done — the six-month deadline is unforgiving. Second, do not delete, alter, or post about the case on social media, and ask close family to do the same — anything posted can be used in deposition. Third, call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 for the free consultation, so we can begin the preservation protocol and the civil filing before the evidence clock runs out. The day you call is the day the preservation letters go out.
What about the threats my family has been receiving?
Report every threat to local law enforcement and document the date, time, and content of each. Threats against a victim’s family during active litigation can be a separate criminal offense and can become evidence in the civil case. Our firm will work with law enforcement and will refer the family to victim-advocate services. We will also work to limit the public exposure of the family during the case, channeling all communication through our office so that your family is not subjected to additional pressure.
How We Handle This Case — Ralph, Lupe, and Our Texas Trial Team
We are The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC, doing business as Attorney911. We are a Texas trial firm. Ralph Manginello is our managing partner and has been a practicing trial lawyer in Texas for more than twenty-seven years. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, and he was a championship-team point guard before that — a starting guard on the 1989 New England Prep School championship team at Cheshire Academy, where he was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame in 2021. He has tried cases in Texas state and federal courts, including in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is admitted to the State Bar of Texas (Bar Card No. 24007597) and has been fighting for Texas families since 1998. He has been part of the BP Texas City refinery explosion litigation, one of the largest mass-tort cases in Texas history. The firm has recovered more than $50 million for Texas families since 1998. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney, and his background is the kind of background a victim’s family needs on its side. Before he crossed to the plaintiff side, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows the Colossus-style settlement software, the reserve-setting process, and the discovery tactics the other side will use, because he used them himself. He is a third-generation Texan with family roots tying to the King Ranch, raised in Sugar Land, where he lives with his family. He earned his undergraduate degree from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and his law degree from South Texas College of Law Houston. He is fluent in Spanish, and we serve Texas families fully in Spanish — Hablamos Español.
The first call is free, and the case costs you nothing unless we recover. You can reach us at 1-888-ATTY-911, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The consultation is confidential. There is no obligation, and there is no pressure. If we are the right firm for your case, we will tell you. If we are not, we will tell you that too. You can also review our work on our Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña attorney pages, and read about our wrongful-death practice on the firm’s site. For a guide written for parents navigating the loss of a child, see our Parents’ Guide to Child Injury Lawsuits, and for the broader framework of what to do in the first days after a fatal incident, our page on what to do after a serious accident applies the same evidence-preservation principles to your situation.
The criminal verdict did not end this case. The civil case is a different courthouse, with different remedies, and with a structure that can reach the parents, the LLC, the school district, and the money that was raised in the killer’s name. We will not promise a number. We will promise the work. Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.