The Moment You Are In, and Why the Criminal Verdict Is Not the End of It
Your son was seventeen. He was at a high school track meet. He did not come home. Fourteen months later, a Collin County jury returned a murder verdict, and a judge imposed a thirty-five-year sentence. That is real justice — and you are right to feel the weight of it.
But the criminal courtroom and the civil courtroom are two different institutions with two different jobs. The criminal case answered one question: did this person kill your son, and what punishment fits? The civil case answers a different set of questions: who else bears responsibility, what assets exist to be reached, and what damages does Texas law permit a jury to award for the loss of a seventeen-year-old’s life. The conviction that just came down does not close those questions. It opens some of them — because in Texas, a criminal conviction can be used against the defendant in a civil case to prove liability, conclusively, without relitigating the worst day of your life.
We are writing this page for you, and for the small circle of people around you. We are Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña, of Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a Texas trial firm. Ralph has spent twenty-seven years in courtrooms, including federal court, and has been admitted to practice in Texas since 1998. Lupe spent years on the other side of the table — inside a national insurance defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their software priced claims like yours — and now sits on your side. Lupe serves Texas families fully in Spanish. We are not writing this as observers. We are writing it as the firm you may call when you are ready.
This page is long because the subject is full. We are going to walk you through what Texas law actually permits after a murder conviction, what deadlines you cannot afford to miss, who else can be held civilly responsible, how the $633,908 raised online can be reached, and what the next thirty days should look like if you want to preserve every option. None of this is a sales pitch. It is the same explanation we give at the kitchen table during a free consultation, written down so you can read it at 2 a.m. and share it with whoever you trust.
From the public record: “This fundraiser has been established to provide comprehensive assistance to the Anthony family as they navigate the many challenges surrounding Karmelo’s case.”
What the Public Record Shows — And What It Does Not
Before we talk about the law, we want to walk you through what is actually documented, because civil cases are built on documented facts, and the public record around this case has raised specific questions a civil case can answer.
On April 2, 2025, your son was fatally stabbed at a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas. The defendant, Karmelo Anthony, was eighteen at the time of the offense. He was subsequently charged, tried, and convicted of murder by a Collin County jury. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. He has since filed a pauper’s affidavit in which he described himself as a “penniless, destitute, and indigent person, too poor to employ counsel to represent me on the appeal.”
That claim is in tension with another public fact. A GiveSendGo fundraising campaign launched on Anthony’s behalf on April 15, 2025 — thirteen days after the killing — raised $633,908 before being removed from public view following his conviction. The campaign stated the funds would support “legal expenses, family relocation costs and other needs.” GiveSendGo later said the funds were distributed for lawful purposes, including legal defense and family relocation expenses.
Public business filings reviewed by news organizations show that Anthony’s parents, Andrew Anthony III and Kala Hayes, are connected to multiple business entities. Louisiana records show that Angelic Obsessions LLC was formed in July 2021 and later became inactive after being revoked by the Louisiana Secretary of State in November 2024. Texas records show that Angelic Obsessions LLC was activated in Texas on April 26, 2025 — twenty-four days after the killing — with Andrew Anthony III listed as the registered agent at an Arlington address. A separate Louisiana entity, Exclusive Luxury Services LLC, was formed in 2016 and experienced multiple administrative actions, including revocations in 2019 and 2023.
Those filings do not, by themselves, prove that any donation proceeds were routed through either company. Andrew Anthony III declined to comment. Anthony’s parents have not been accused of any wrongdoing or charged with a crime. We are not alleging that they have done anything wrong. We are telling you what the public record shows, and we are telling you that the public record raises questions a civil case is built to answer through formal discovery — subpoenas, depositions, and document production — that no news article can replicate.
That distinction matters. News articles report what is filed. A civil case demands what is real.
Why Criminal Justice Is Not the Whole Answer — and What Civil Law Is Built to Do
Texas law provides two distinct civil causes of action when one person kills another: a wrongful death claim and a survival action. They sound similar, and they arise from the same tragedy, but they do different work and they compensate different losses. The wrongful death case belongs to the heirs — the people who lost their loved one. The survival case belongs to the estate, and it compensates the losses the person who died suffered between the wrongful act and the moment of death. The same incident can produce both, and both can be pursued in the same civil lawsuit.
Under Section 71.002 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, a wrongful death action may be brought by the heirs of the deceased — the children, parents, and spouse, in the order Texas law recognizes. The damages recoverable include the pecuniary loss resulting from the death (which for a seventeen-year-old includes the lifetime earnings he would have provided and the value of the services and support he would have contributed to his family), the loss of companionship and society, the mental anguish suffered by the heirs, and the loss of inheritance. There is no cap on wrongful death non-economic damages against a private defendant in Texas.
Under Section 71.021, the survival action belongs to the estate and recovers what your son himself lost — the pain and suffering he experienced between the stabbing and his death, the medical and hospital bills incurred in that window, and any pre-death earning capacity. The survival damages pass through the estate according to your son’s will, or — if he had no will — according to Texas’s intestacy rules.
What the criminal case did not do, and could not do, is award your family any money. A Texas criminal court can sentence a defendant to prison. It cannot order restitution in the way a civil jury can. The criminal case did not name the parents. The criminal case did not name the school district. The criminal case did not trace the $633,908. The civil case can do all of those things — and the conviction itself becomes one of the most powerful weapons in the civil case, because under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, a final criminal conviction is conclusive proof of the facts necessarily decided in the criminal case. Your civil jury will not be asked to relitigate whether Anthony killed your son. The conviction answers that question. The civil case then focuses on damages, on who else is responsible, and on what assets exist to satisfy a judgment.
That changes the shape of the fight entirely. You are not starting at zero on liability against Anthony. You are starting at one hundred percent.
The Texas Deadlines You Cannot Afford to Miss
Two clocks govern this case, and they run at very different speeds.
The two-year statute of limitations. Under Section 16.003(b) of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, a wrongful death action must be filed within two years of the date of death. Your son died on April 2, 2025. The deadline to file a wrongful death lawsuit is therefore April 2, 2027. That is roughly ten months from today. A survival action carries the same two-year limit. Ten months is enough time to investigate, preserve evidence, file suit, and conduct initial discovery — but it is not enough time to wait. The criminal appeal will likely run well past April 2027. The civil case can, and typically should, be filed before the criminal appeal concludes, so that discovery proceeds in parallel and the statute of limitations is locked in.
The six-month Tort Claims Act notice. If a Texas school district is a defendant — and in this case, Frisco ISD is a potential defendant based on premises liability and negligent security theories — a different and far more dangerous deadline applies. Under Section 101.101 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, a person asserting a claim against a governmental unit must file a formal written notice of claim with the unit’s governing body within six months of the incident. The incident occurred on April 2, 2025. The six-month notice deadline was therefore October 2, 2025.
We have to be honest with you about that deadline. If a TTCA notice was not filed on or before October 2, 2025, the claim against Frisco ISD may be barred by sovereign immunity — meaning the school district cannot be sued for money damages on that theory, no matter how strong the facts. Texas courts have been strict about this deadline. The notice is not a formality. It is a jurisdictional prerequisite, and a late notice can end a case before it begins.
If you have not yet filed a TTCA notice, we need to talk immediately — not because we can recover what is lost, but because the analysis is fact-specific. The six-month clock can be tolled (paused) in narrow circumstances, and there are arguments that some of the theories against the district may not require TTCA notice at all, depending on the precise nature of the claim and the precise location of the stabbing. We will not know until we have examined the specific facts. What we can tell you is this: if a TTCA notice is required and was not filed, every day we delay talking about the alternatives is a day we are not building them.
The two-year wrongful death deadline is the more forgiving clock. The six-month TTCA clock is the unforgiving one. If you take one thing from this page, take this: call us today, at 1-888-ATTY-911, and let us pull the records that tell us which deadlines have been met and which have not.
Going After the Parents and the Business Entities
Anthony is going to prison for thirty-five years. He is, for the next three and a half decades, what lawyers call judgment-proof — meaning that even if you win a civil judgment against him, he has no current assets and no current income from which to pay it. That does not mean the civil case against him is worthless. Texas law permits execution on future assets, including any post-prison earnings, any inheritance he may receive, and any assets he may accumulate after release. The judgment can follow him for the rest of his life. But for the family’s purposes, the realistic source of any near-term recovery lies elsewhere — and that is precisely why the civil case looks at the parents and the business entities connected to them.
There are several distinct legal theories, and we will walk through each.
Negligent storage of a weapon. In 2023, Texas enacted Section 128.001 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which creates civil liability for a person who fails to secure a firearm if a minor accesses it. If the weapon used in the stabbing was a firearm (or if the statute is extended to cover other weapons in future legislative sessions), this statute provides a direct theory against the parents who owned the home where the weapon was stored. If the weapon was not a firearm, the common-law theory of negligent entrustment still applies — a parent who supplies, loans, or fails to secure a dangerous weapon can be held liable when that weapon causes foreseeable harm.
Civil conspiracy and aiding and abetting. Texas recognizes civil conspiracy as a theory of recovery 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 agreement. The theory is fact-intensive and requires discovery into communications, knowledge, and actions. We are not alleging that the parents conspired to kill anyone. We are telling you that the tools of civil discovery — subpoenas for bank records, text messages, emails, and depositions under oath — exist to test these questions in a way that a public affidavit cannot.
Alter-ego and piercing the corporate veil. Texas courts will pierce the corporate veil and impose personal liability on a corporate owner when the owner has used the corporation as a mere alter ego, has commingled personal and corporate funds, has failed to observe corporate formalities, and has used the corporation to perpetrate a fraud. If discovery into Angelic Obsessions LLC — the Texas entity activated on April 26, 2025, twenty-four days after the killing — shows that corporate formalities were not observed, that personal and entity funds were commingled, or that the entity was used to shield assets from a foreseeable claim, a Texas court may treat the LLC’s assets as the parents’ personal assets.
The Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act. Under Section 24.005 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code, a transfer of an asset is fraudulent as to a creditor — present or future — if the transfer was made with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud that creditor, or if the transfer was made for less than reasonably equivalent value at a time the transferor was facing a pending or threatened claim. The statute lists eleven badges of fraud that courts consider, including whether the transfer was to an insider, whether the transferor retained possession or control, whether the transfer was disclosed, and — critically — whether the transfer occurred shortly before or after a substantial debt was incurred. A transfer made twenty-four days after a homicide, into an entity owned by the transferor’s parents, is the kind of transaction the UFTA exists to address.
What we want to be clear about is this: we are not making any allegation of wrongdoing against the parents. We are describing the legal theories that exist when a family is in the position the Metcalf family is in, and the discovery tools that exist to test those theories. The civil case is the forum where the questions raised by the public record get answered with sworn testimony and authenticated documents, not press inquiries and declined comments.
Holding the School District Accountable Under the Texas Tort Claims Act
Frisco Independent School District is one of the largest and wealthiest school districts in Texas. It operates numerous high school campuses, including the venue where the track meet was held. The district has a statutory duty under the Texas Education Code to provide a safe environment for students at school-sponsored events. Section 37.123 of the Education Code governs weapons on school grounds, and Section 37.125 governs the reporting of violent incidents.
The civil theory against a school district in a case like this runs through premises liability and negligent security. A school district that hosts a sanctioned event on its property owes a duty to provide reasonable security and supervision. The analysis is fact-specific: was the stabbing on school property or at a sanctioned event; were metal detectors or security officers present; what was the supervision ratio at the meet; were teachers and coaches positioned to intervene; and — perhaps most importantly — had there been prior fights, prior weapons incidents, or prior warnings at that venue or at comparable school events in the district? A history of similar incidents is powerful evidence that the danger was foreseeable, and foreseeability is what turns a tragedy into negligence.
The challenge is the Texas Tort Claims Act. The TTCA is a waiver of sovereign immunity — meaning it is the only path by which a private citizen can sue a Texas governmental unit for money damages, and it comes with strict procedural requirements. The six-month notice under Section 101.101 is the most famous. The notice must be in writing, must describe the damage or injury claimed, must state the time and place of the incident, and must be filed with the proper governmental officer. The form matters. The timing matters. The recipient matters. If any of those pieces is wrong, sovereign immunity can bar the claim entirely.
As we noted in the deadlines section, the six-month clock for a TTCA notice in this case was October 2, 2025. If that notice was not filed, the school district theory may face a jurisdictional bar. We are not giving up on the school district theory without a careful examination of the facts, but we are being honest with you about the obstacle. The first thing we do in a consultation is pull the records that tell us exactly where every deadline stands.
There is also a separate, narrower theory that may not require TTCA notice: a claim against individual school employees in their individual capacities for conduct that goes beyond the scope of employment. That theory has its own limits — official-capacity claims against employees are typically treated as claims against the governmental unit itself — but it is one of the things we look at when the TTCA path is foreclosed. We will not know what is available until we have the full picture.
Tracing the $633,908 — The Money Trail
The public record tells us that $633,908 was raised on GiveSendGo between April 15, 2025, and the defendant’s conviction. The campaign stated the funds would support legal expenses, family relocation costs, and other needs. GiveSendGo later said the funds were distributed for lawful purposes, including legal defense and family relocation.
What the public record does not tell us is where every dollar of that $633,908 actually went. That is what civil discovery exists to determine.
Within fourteen days of being retained on a case like this, we issue a preservation subpoena to GiveSendGo. The platform has a legal obligation to retain, and not delete, the donor records, withdrawal ledgers, account statements, internal communications, and platform policies that govern how funds were distributed. If those records are deleted now, they are gone forever. The preservation demand stops the clock. After the civil complaint is filed, we issue a Rule 196 Request for Production and a Rule 198 Subpoena to GiveSendGo for the same materials, this time with the power of court order behind it.
In parallel, we subpoena the bank records of Angelic Obsessions LLC, the bank records of Exclusive Luxury Services LLC, and the personal bank records of Andrew Anthony III and Kala Hayes. Texas Secretary of State filings are public — we can pull the formation documents, the registered-agent filings, and the annual reports for the Texas LLC today, before any lawsuit is filed. The bank records, however, require litigation-triggered subpoenas under Sections 59.006 and 59.008 of the Finance Code. Once the civil case is filed, we can reach them.
We also pull the tax returns. If donations were deposited into an LLC account, the LLC’s tax filings (or the absence of them) tell the story. If personal funds and entity funds were commingled, the bank statements and the tax returns will show it. The forensic accountant we retain on a case like this is trained to follow money through layered entities and through the periods where records are most likely to be incomplete.
The Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, Section 24.005, gives a Texas court the power to set aside transfers that were made with intent to defraud creditors, and to order the transferee to turn the assets back over. If a transfer of donation proceeds into Angelic Obsessions LLC — formed in Texas twenty-four days after the killing, owned by the defendant’s father — was made for the purpose of shielding those assets from a foreseeable civil claim, the UFTA is the tool Texas gives us to undo the transfer and reach the money.
The Full Damages Picture — What a Texas Jury Can Award
Texas law permits a civil jury to award several distinct categories of damages in a wrongful death case. The categories are different, and the proof required for each is different, and a well-built case develops each one separately.
Economic damages include the past and future lost earning capacity of the person who died, the loss of household services the person would have provided, the loss of inheritance the heirs would have received, the medical and hospital expenses incurred between the wrongful act and the death, and the funeral and burial expenses. For a seventeen-year-old, the lost earning capacity claim requires an economist to project what your son would have earned over a working lifetime, discounted to present value, with adjustments for career path, education, and work-life expectancy. The Texas average for funeral and burial costs runs between ten and fifteen thousand dollars, but a serious case is built around more than averages.
Non-economic damages include the mental anguish suffered by the heirs, the loss of companionship and society, the loss of parental guidance for surviving parents, and the loss of advice and counsel. These damages are real, and Texas juries understand them. There is no statutory cap on non-economic damages against a private defendant in Texas — the caps apply only to claims against governmental units under the TTCA. A conservative Collin County jury, composed of homeowners and parents, can be trusted to understand the value of what your family lost.
Punitive damages are a separate category. Texas Chapter 41 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code governs punitive damages, and ordinarily caps them at the greater of two times the economic damages plus an amount equal to the non-economic damages, or two hundred thousand dollars. But Section 41.008(c)(2) removes the cap when the defendant committed a felony intentionally — and murder is the textbook example of an intentional felony. The cap is off. The full range of what a Texas jury considers appropriate to punish the conduct and deter similar conduct is on the table. For a case built on an intentional homicide, that is a powerful weapon.
Survival damages are the damages your son himself suffered between the stabbing and his death — the pain, the fear, the awareness. They pass through his estate. They are the only damages that recognize, in legal terms, what your son experienced. They are not the largest category in the case, but they are the most personal.
What is the case worth? We are not in the business of quoting verdicts or settlements, because the value of any case depends on the facts, the jurisdiction, the evidence, and the jury. What we can tell you is the range that experienced Texas practitioners recognize in cases of this kind. Against a judgment-proof defendant with no current assets, the realistic near-term recovery may be modest. Against the parents, the LLCs, and the school district — with full UFTA piercing, with discovery into the $633,908, and with punitive damages uncapped under Chapter 41 — the realistic range reaches into the low eight figures and beyond. We will not give you a number until we have seen the documents. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we will tell you is that the criminal conviction removes a substantial portion of the trial risk that a typical wrongful death case carries, and that changes the value of the case meaningfully.
The Playbook: What the Other Side Will Do, and What We Do Back
Every case has a playbook on the other side. A civil case arising from a murder conviction has several, and we want you to know what they are before they land on you.
The “penniless” filing is the first play. The defendant’s pauper’s affidavit is a public document. It is also, potentially, a legal tool — a court may use it to determine eligibility for appointed counsel on appeal. It is not, however, a binding admission of indigence for purposes of a civil judgment. A defendant in a civil case has the right to undergo a post-judgment asset discovery process called a judgment debtor examination, under Rule 621a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, and the defendant can be compelled under oath to disclose assets. The “penniless” claim is a statement made in one context; the civil case has its own tools to test it.
The LLC is the asset-hiding play. The activation of Angelic Obsessions LLC twenty-four days after the killing, in the state where the family lives, in the name of the defendant’s father, is the kind of fact pattern the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act was written to address. The counter to the LLC play is the discovery we have already described — bank records, tax filings, and forensic accounting. The counter is also the law: Texas courts can pierce the veil and can set aside fraudulent transfers.
The “we have no money” play. The Anthony family may respond to a civil complaint by claiming they have no money and that any judgment would be uncollectible. The counter is the same as the LLC counter — discovery into the actual finances, and the legal tools to reach what is there. We do not accept the claim of indigence at face value when the public record shows $633,908 raised in the defendant’s name, two LLCs in the family, and a refusal to discuss the disposition of the funds.
The “sovereign immunity” play from the school district. Frisco ISD, through its assigned counsel and its risk pool (typically the Texas Association of School Boards Risk Management Fund), will raise sovereign immunity, will dispute that the danger was foreseeable, will argue that the supervision at the event was reasonable, and will point to the criminal conviction as the proper remedy. The counter to sovereign immunity is the Texas Tort Claims Act, and we have already discussed the six-month notice trap. The counter to the foreseeability argument is discovery into prior incidents, security plans, and supervision records at the venue. The counter to the “criminal case is enough” argument is the law: a criminal sentence punishes the offender; it does not compensate the family, and it does not reform the system that allowed the danger to exist.
The “character attack” play. Defense counsel in cases like this often try to portray the victim in unflattering terms — to suggest the victim provoked the encounter, or contributed to it, or was engaged in behavior that made the harm more likely. This is one of the most painful tactics a grieving family encounters, and we want you to know about it in advance. The counter is the criminal conviction itself: the jury already heard every argument the defense wanted to make about what happened, and they convicted Anthony of murder. The collateral estoppel effect of that conviction forecloses most character-based defenses in the civil case.
The Proof Story — How a Case Like This Is Actually Built
You may be wondering what a civil case actually looks like, step by step, when the criminal case is already over. The work is different, but the discipline is the same. Here is how we build a case like this one.
Week one. The day you call, we send preservation letters. We send one to GiveSendGo, demanding that they preserve every record of the campaign, every donor record, every withdrawal, every internal communication about the fund, and every platform policy that governed how the money was distributed. We send one to the Anthony family, through their counsel if they have one, putting them on notice that any destruction of records will be met with a spoliation instruction at trial and a separate tort claim for intentional spoliation of evidence. We send one to Angelic Obsessions LLC and to Exclusive Luxury Services LLC, demanding preservation of bank records, tax filings, contracts, and communications. And we send one to Frisco ISD, demanding preservation of security video, supervision logs, incident reports, security plans, and the personnel files of any employee whose conduct is at issue.
Week two. We pull the public records. Texas Secretary of State filings for Angelic Obsessions LLC. Louisiana Secretary of State filings for both Louisiana entities. The criminal docket from Collin County, including the indictment, the verdict form, the sentencing order, and the judgment of conviction. The public records search confirms what the news reports describe, and it also confirms what they do not describe — the dates, the registered agents, the addresses, and the status of each entity on each relevant date.
Weeks three and four. We file the civil complaint in Collin County District Court. The venue is deliberate: Collin County is a conservative, homeowner-heavy jurisdiction that has historically been receptive to serious civil plaintiffs. The complaint pleads wrongful death, survival, civil conspiracy (as to the parents based on discovery yet to come), and any premises liability theory that survives the TTCA analysis. We also file the TTCA notice if one has not been filed and if the deadline is salvageable.
Months two through four. Discovery. Rule 196 Requests for Production to the Anthony family and to the LLCs, demanding bank records, tax returns, entity filings, contracts, communications, and asset schedules. Rule 198 Subpoenas to GiveSendGo, to the banks, and to the Louisiana and Texas Secretaries of State for certified records. Depositions of the parents, the defendant (through his counsel), and any third party with knowledge of the fund’s disposition. We retain a forensic accountant, a Texas-licensed economist, and — depending on the school district theory — a security consultant and a forensic pathologist.
Months five through nine. Expert reports. The economist projects the lifetime earnings your son would have earned. The forensic accountant traces the $633,908 from donation to distribution. The pathologist, if needed, provides the medical causation analysis. The security consultant analyzes the school district’s supervision and security failures against the industry standard.
Months ten through fifteen. Mediation, then trial preparation. Mediation in a case like this is rarely productive against a judgment-proof defendant, but it is useful as a discovery pressure tool — the act of preparing for mediation forces the other side to evaluate the case realistically, and the numbers they put on the table tell us what they fear. If the case does not resolve, we try it.
At trial. We bifurcate the case into a liability phase and a damages phase. In the liability phase, we lead with the criminal conviction. The certified copy of the judgment of conviction is conclusive proof that Anthony committed the murder. The defense is foreclosed from relitigating the question. We then present whatever evidence we have developed against the parents and against the school district. In the damages phase, we present the economist, the life-care planner, the mental-anguish testimony of the family, and the punitive damages case under Chapter 41. If discovery has produced evidence of fraudulent transfer, the punitive phase is where that evidence is deployed.
The First Thirty Days — What a Family Should Do
If your family is in the position the Metcalf family is in, here is what the next thirty days should look like. None of this is legal advice for your specific case. It is a checklist based on the kinds of cases we have handled.
Stop talking publicly. Do not post about the case on social media. Do not give interviews about the evidence. Do not respond to inquiries from journalists or commentators. Everything you say publicly can be used — twisted, taken out of context, or simply repeated back to you in a deposition. Your lawyers will speak for you. If you have already said things publicly, tell us what you said and when, so we can prepare.
Do not sign anything from the other side. If anyone connected to the Anthony family, the school district, or an insurance company contacts you with a settlement offer, a release, or a request for a statement, refer them to us. Do not sign. Do not respond. Do not cash any check that arrives in the mail. A quick settlement check is one of the oldest plays in the book, and it almost always comes with a release on the back that ends your case.
Pull your own records. Gather everything you have — police reports, the school district’s communications with you, the criminal court filings you received, any text messages or emails about the case, any medical records from the hospital. We will want to see all of it.
Screen your phone. Reporters, commentators, and hostile actors may try to reach you. Your safety matters. Set up call screening on your phone. Use a separate email address for case-related communications. Tell us about any threats immediately.
Take care of your grief. We will handle the legal work. You handle the family. We will refer you to victim advocate services and to grief counseling resources. The legal case will take months, and you cannot pour from an empty cup. The most important thing you can do for the case in the first thirty days is take care of yourselves.
Make the call. When you are ready, call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free, and there is no fee unless we win. We will sit down with you — in person, by phone, or by video — and walk through what we have just walked through here, with your specific facts in front of us. We will tell you honestly what we think the case is worth, what the obstacles are, and what the path forward looks like. You will not be charged for that conversation. We serve Texas families fully in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the statute of limitations for wrongful death in Texas after a murder?
Two years from the date of death, under Section 16.003(b) of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. For a death on April 2, 2025, the deadline to file a wrongful death lawsuit is April 2, 2027. A survival action carries the same two-year deadline. The deadline can be tolled (paused) in narrow circumstances, but you should not rely on tolling. The safest course is to file within the two-year window.
Can we sue the parents of a convicted murderer in Texas?
Potentially yes, on several theories. Negligent storage of a weapon under Section 128.001 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code (if the weapon was a firearm). Common-law negligent entrustment (if the parents supplied or failed to secure the weapon that was used). Civil conspiracy and aiding and abetting, if discovery shows the parents agreed to an unlawful purpose. Alter-ego and piercing the corporate veil, if the parents used an LLC to commingle personal and entity funds. And the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, Section 24.005, if a transfer of assets was made with intent to defraud a creditor. Each theory is fact-intensive and depends on what discovery reveals.
What is the Texas Tort Claims Act notice deadline, and what happens if we miss it?
Six months from the date of the incident, under Section 101.101 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. For an incident on April 2, 2025, the deadline was October 2, 2025. If the notice is not filed on time, sovereign immunity can bar the claim against the governmental unit entirely. Texas courts have been strict about this deadline. If you have not yet filed, call us today so we can examine whether tolling arguments or alternative theories might preserve the claim.
Can a murderer be held civilly liable if he has no money?
Yes. A civil judgment follows the defendant for the rest of his life. Texas law permits execution on future assets, including post-prison earnings, any inheritance received, and any assets accumulated after release. The judgment can be renewed. The defendant can be subjected to a judgment debtor examination under Rule 621a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. A defendant who is judgment-proof today is not necessarily judgment-proof forever.
What is collateral estoppel, and how does the criminal conviction help our civil case?
Collateral estoppel is the legal doctrine that prevents a party from relitigating an issue that was actually and necessarily decided in a prior proceeding. When a defendant is convicted of murder in a Texas criminal case, the conviction is conclusive proof in a later civil case that the defendant committed the murder. Your civil jury will not be asked to decide whether the killing happened. The conviction answers that question. The civil case then focuses on damages, on other defendants, and on collection.
Can we go after money raised in a GoFundMe or GiveSendGo for the killer?
Potentially, through the discovery process. A civil subpoena to the crowdfunding platform can produce the donor records, withdrawal ledgers, and internal communications that show where the money went. If donations were transferred to an LLC or to a family member, the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act gives a Texas court the power to set aside the transfer and reach the funds. The key is acting quickly, because platforms can be subject to data deletion policies and donors may move funds.
Can we sue the school district for a student stabbing at a school event?
Potentially yes, on a premises liability and negligent security theory, but the path is constrained by the Texas Tort Claims Act. The six-month notice under Section 101.101 is a strict jurisdictional prerequisite. The substance of the claim requires proof that the danger was foreseeable, that the district failed to provide reasonable supervision or security, and that the failure was a proximate cause of the harm. Prior incident history at the venue, supervision ratios, security plans, and the presence or absence of metal detectors or security officers are all part of the proof.
What is the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, and how does it apply to LLCs?
The UFTA is found in Chapter 24 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code. A transfer of an asset is fraudulent as to a creditor if it was made with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud the creditor, or if it was made for less than reasonably equivalent value at a time the transferor was facing a pending or threatened claim. The statute lists eleven badges of fraud, including transfers to insiders, transfers made shortly before or after a substantial debt was incurred, and transfers where the transferor retained control. A transfer into an LLC owned by a family member, made shortly after a homicide, is precisely the kind of transaction the UFTA is designed to address.
How long does a wrongful death case take in Texas?
It depends on the complexity of the case and the court. A straightforward case with one defendant and clear liability can resolve in twelve to eighteen months. A complex case with multiple defendants, third-party claims, extensive discovery, and contested damages can take two to four years. Cases that go to trial can take longer. The criminal appeal in a murder case can run in parallel, but it does not pause the civil statute of limitations. We will give you a realistic timeline for your specific case after we have examined the facts.
What is a survival action, and how is it different from wrongful death?
A survival action belongs to the estate of the person who died, and it recovers the losses that person suffered between the wrongful act and the moment of death — pain and suffering, medical bills, and pre-death earning capacity. A wrongful death action belongs to the heirs, and it recovers the losses the heirs themselves suffered — loss of companionship and society, mental anguish, loss of parental guidance, loss of inheritance. Both can be pursued in the same civil lawsuit, and both are governed by the same two-year statute of limitations under Section 16.003.
Who We Are, and What the First Call Looks Like
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a Texas trial firm based in Houston, with offices in Austin and Beaumont. Ralph Manginello has spent twenty-seven years in courtrooms, including federal court. He has been a Texas-licensed trial lawyer since 1998. He fought in the BP Texas City refinery explosion litigation, and the firm has recovered more than fifty million dollars for Texas families over the course of his career. Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, is a former insurance defense lawyer who spent years inside a national defense firm — in the rooms where adjusters decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours — and now uses that knowledge on your side of the table. Lupe serves Texas families fully in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
Our practice includes wrongful death cases across Texas, and we have handled complex civil litigation arising from criminal conduct. We know the difference between a criminal verdict and a civil recovery, and we know how to use the first to build the second. We are not the right firm for every case, and we will tell you honestly if we are not. What we will tell you in a free consultation is what we see in your facts, what the obstacles are, and what the path forward looks like.
The consultation costs you nothing. There is no fee unless we win. We will sit down with you — in person, by phone, or by video — at a time that works for your family. We will listen, we will explain, and we will give you our honest assessment. You can reach us at our contact page, or you can call 1-888-ATTY-911 right now. A real person will answer, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The call is free. The conversation is confidential. And you will leave it with more clarity than you have right now.
If you would like to understand more about how wrongful death cases are built, we have a series of educational videos that walk through the legal process. You can also learn more about Ralph’s background and Lupe’s background on our website. And if you have questions about how contingency fees work in a case like this, we have a plain-English explanation you can watch at your own pace.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice for your specific case. Calling us does not create an attorney-client relationship. What it does is start a conversation, and in your situation, that conversation is the first step toward making sure the civil system does for your family what the criminal system alone could not.
Explore our practice areas to see the full scope of what we do. When you are ready, call 1-888-ATTY-911. We are here.