The Parents Speak. Karmelo Anthony's Mother and Father Sit Down with Mimi Brown

Part one. Just hours after a Texas jury found their son guilty of murder and a judge sentenced him to thirty-five years in prison, Karmelo Anthony's parents sit down with Mimi Brown. They reflect on the verdict. The sentence. The fifteen months of harassment, swatting calls, and threats their family has lived through. The trial they watched from inside a Collin County Texas courtroom. And the son they are still fighting for. Mimi sets up the conversation, shares what she walked into the room expecting and what she walked out understanding. 

From the Black Effect Podcast Network.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey everyone, It's me Me, and today is Friday, June twelfth,
and we're going to listen to part one of my
interview with Carmelo Anthony's parents, Drew Anthony and Kayla Hayes.
This interview was so hard to do. It was probably

(00:29):
one of the hardest things I've ever had to do
in my life. Listening to them less than I'd say,
twelve hours after the verdicts came down, after the sentencing
came down, watching them throughout the entire interview wait on
the phone to ring so that they can hear from him,

(00:53):
to know that he's okay. This situation is so tragic.
As a mom myself of a twelve year old, I
can't even imagine. You know, a lot of times they
think you know once you reach a certain age seventeen
this happened when Carmelo was seventeen, that you're an adult,
or but listening to these two people describe their household

(01:16):
and their family and their family dynamic, and their love
and their bond and how they've been together since high
school and watching him wipe her tears lets me know
what kind of family he came from. You know, I
don't have to know him to feel for this situation.
I don't have to know their parents to feel for

(01:37):
this situation. This case has been so polarizing, it has
been so racially charged. I just think that we are
forgetting at the center of this. In essence, two people
lost their lives and it is just heartbreaking watch basically

(01:57):
one side crucify a child, and I think that we
need to all come together and just figure out how
to help this family. So that is my take. That
is this episode. I hope that you guys have some feedback.

(02:17):
This episode was a really rough run emotionally watching them
not sleep. I don't even think I slept the night
before when I put myself in their position. So anyway,
here is part one. How are you guys holding up.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Right now? We're in a nightmare. Doesn't feel real.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
We've been up all night, crying, praying, waiting for family
to come in.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
We have some family who has made it.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Were just writing now lost words, waiting for it him
to give us a call as soon as spot.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
So you haven't heard from him just yet.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
We heard from yesterday.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
He actually suffered from seizures, so we actually have to
bring his medicine to the courthouse.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
So we went for them to give us instruction to
get there.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
We know Carmelo from the courtroom, but but tell us
who is he? What kind of person is he? What
kind of son is he? At home?

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Now?

Speaker 4 (03:14):
He is a wonderful son.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
He's a wonderful student.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Three point three point seven GPA, work two jobs.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
He's sorry, baby, you're for cutting you off. He was
actually taking online classes during all of this and still
helped a great GPA going through this traumatic time.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Hm he I mean he he was a kid.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
If I didn't said he was a captain's track team,
football team. He was working two jobs. He he was.
He actually saved the kid life that the mom he
jumped in the pool, which and saved the kid life,
which is amazing. I didn't know how great he was
until this traged tragic.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
I want to ask some things to that. At home,
he loves cooking, whether it's in the kitchen outside grilling.
He makes the best habachi. He loves running routes and
plans soccer with his younger brother, Kingston. He has a
brother named Andrew. He's twelve. And Andrew is into doing

(04:32):
sciences experiments, and Carmelo loved helping him with science experiments.
He loves putting legos together with his girlfriend. He's just
a lovable, sincere child.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, do you feel like the world, you know, just
going through this trial got an accurate description of who
Carmelo really is.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
No, we've come to find out which we were before
all this. We were a family that basically stay to ourselves.
We were very close knitted. My wife's at home. She
stayed at home. I was working, and we didn't know
how cruel the world could be. They have his face

(05:17):
plastered all over after he was one, while he still
was a minor, and it was like it was everything
was happening. We was getting threats. They docked us. I
didn't I was so clueless and so involved in work.
I didn't even know what docxing was. They put our
address on line and so we had people coming to

(05:38):
our home so we never had to leave with in
our home like they had us in some type of
like what is a protective thing whatever to get us,
you know, to get to keep us safe with our
other kids.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
The world.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Right now, it sounds unbelievable the things that he accomplished.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Before this tragic ass.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Like it was really mess you up and as me
being a father, I didn't realize like him saving a life,
I just as as a father. I got caught up
and Hey, that's what you're supposed to do. That's your expectation,
you know, being a man. Hey, that's what we do.
We move on, like him working. Hey, man, you're supposed
to have a job. I was trying to he was,
you know how it is that young. It's like with

(06:19):
your girl too much. Man, you need to get a job,
get a higher So he's working, but I kept him
busy too. And this whole situation is the reality of
this is that somebody literally walked in his life. No,
literally walked into his life. He did everything by the law.

(06:39):
And look where we're at.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
I want to go back to that day, that day
that that track me. Were you guys at the event
at that track meet on April second, No.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
We were not.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
I was actually supposed to go to the track meet,
but the weather was so bad. I just stay home.
It's like, mother, don't come, Just just stay home. And now,
looking back on everything, I wish I was there. I
regret not being there for my child.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
When did you hear the news that there had been
an incident that day?

Speaker 4 (07:21):
I received the email saying that there was an incident,
no phone call, no anything.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
You know, My instinct was instinct.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
Because Cormelo, he's the type of child to let me
know everything is going on, and it wasn't like him
to not call me and tell.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Me what was going on.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
So when I received the email, we have Life three sixty,
so I went into Life three sixty. I'm like, wait,
they said the buses made it back to the school,
but Carmelo location is still stating that he's at the stadium,
Like what's going on? So I headed to the school
and that's how I found out what happened.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
How I found out.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
I was actually in a work meeting, and when she
first called him, I thought it was because it was
right after EPI fools. I was like, oh, y'all playing
this because he doesn't. He doesn't, this is not him.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I was on a he's playing all right whatever,
But she was like, no, he was involved in the status.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
So when we heard that, I didn't know what happened
at the time, and they kept us like they kept
us from everything like they kept us, so we running around.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
From place to place, place to place. Everything was just
moving so fast. That day. I'll never forget that. It
was just like everything.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Then once we found out and got he went to
his buying him and the next day somebody doctor us
making it. I don't want to say that name, but
a lady put started making this. They tried to blame
it on one person not making them about raised.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
But you had this lady that went on to.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Talking about white lives and all this other stuff and
now went boom the race car started about. That's how
Jay Lane and all these other guys got involved in this.
But it was at the end of the day, this
was a kid situation that a lot of adults made
about their personal well, how they really wanted to feel.
This is the time they wanted to show this is

(09:17):
how we really feel about y'all, and they used my stunt.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
For example, what.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Did Carmelo tell you happened that day at the track meet?

Speaker 2 (09:25):
I mean he was sitting there seeing his friend.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
If you once you get the reports and everything, he
was actually his girlfriend's cousin invited him to the tent.
So when they invited him to the tent, you know,
it was just hey, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Such and such? It was raining. He sat there then
that you know it.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
You had these two guys who approached him, even sending
the video in court. It was like, I know y'all
see this. I know y'all see this. And we got
comfortable with the instructions that were told. We was told
not to say nothing, we was told not to do this.
So we did everything.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
We did.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
We followed all instructions, and we were told, hey, don't
do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. Hey,
don't talk to this person, don't talk to this person.
It was all this and look what happened to my son.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
It sounds like you wish you had talked more, that
you had said more, that you had got your story
out more.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
I called myself trying. Sometimes you could do the right thing,
but could be the wrong thing.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Did Carmelo want to get his story out more to
the public as well?

Speaker 2 (10:30):
He was trying to listen to what he was being advised.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
You know, hey, don't make it up out rage, don't
do this, don't do this. So we were like, all right,
well go again. We played the game they wanted. We
did everything a lot about it.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Citizen posted. They told us, don't do this.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
We did with everything were supposed to, and he wanted people.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
You know, of course you want somebody.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
They got pictures of him being seventeen on would address
some saying he's gonna be raped in jail like all
kind of these adults. Adults are talking about this child,
but nobody's seeing it. Like nobody's seeing it, so we
can't say anything. The other family, they go paint this lie.
That's nobody still up exposed that he died in his
brother arms and it was.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Not true, because that is the narrative.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
No, no, you never heard it. No more that what
the stuff was a lie? You heard about a bag.
You never heard about a bag, sincerid that's I was
telling people. A lot is temporary, but the truth lasts forever.
It's just now it's like hardy, Now I gotta fight
to get the truth out where now we had He
basically had to get the book thrown at him thirty
five years And it's County that basically honestly feel as

(11:44):
though that they.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Manipulate us with a smile. They act as if they cared,
but they really didn't.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
When they win the jurors selection, we're seeing all the
people with the juris selection we were, I was like, baby,
it's not right. But my wife is the type of
person we'll I'm not gonna just say we're both the
type we try to be positive. Hey, then we're not
gonna look at it. That's not that's not what it is.
That's not us, that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
That's your front page. I mean me brown. This podcast
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