A Texas teenager has been convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison for fatally stabbing a 17-year-old track athlete from a rival team during a high school meet. The trial, which concluded Tuesday, garnered significant attention beyond the Dallas suburb where the students resided.
A jury rejected Karmelo Anthony’s claims of self-defense during a confrontation with Austin Metcalf in stadium bleachers last year. Most witnesses were students who described a heated exchange that began over Anthony’s refusal to leave a tent belonging to Metcalf’s team on a rainy spring day.
Anthony, now 19, did not testify during the trial. Only his mother took the stand during the sentencing phase, appealing to jurors for mercy and stating her son was remorseful.
The case’s notoriety spread, partly due to a flood of social media posts that amplified the killing in racial terms, noting Anthony is Black and Metcalf was white. However, lawyers on both sides explicitly told jurors that the tragedy had no connection to race.
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Jurors, who deliberated for less than three hours, had the option of a lesser charge, manslaughter, but didn’t choose it.
Prosecutor Bill Wirskye had asked for a lengthy prison term.
“Mercy to the guilty,” he said, “is cruelty to the innocent.”
Earlier Tuesday, during the trial’s closing arguments, the jury heard dueling narratives from Wirskye and defense attorney Mike Howard about what happened in April 2025.
Several schools were competing when Anthony sat under the Memorial High School tent that was perched in the bleachers. Metcalf and others had repeatedly told Anthony to leave, witnesses testified, leading to an escalating confrontation.
Howard told jurors that Metcalf had “no legal right to put his hands on Karmelo.”
“Texas law does not require that you wait until you get hit,” Howard said. “In that split second of chaos, you must put yourself in his shoes.”
During the nearly weeklong trial, prosecutors said that Anthony provoked Metcalf, and witnesses have testified that Anthony was the aggressor.
“This is not self-defense, folks. It’s murder plain and simple,” Wirskye said.
Anthony at one point reached inside a bag and replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” according to a police report.
Metcalf pushed Anthony, according to witnesses, who said Anthony then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest. The teens, both from Frisco, didn’t know each other.
“You don’t get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove,” Wirskye said.
The prosecutor also made a broader pitch to the jury: “Ultimately, this case is about accountability. What kind of community do you want to live in.”
The trial drew lines of spectators hoping to find seats in the gallery and unfolded amid heavy security at the Collin County courthouse. As police officers watched Tuesday, dozens of people stood outside the courthouse in 90 degree Fahrenheit heat (32 degrees Celsius) to await the verdict. There were wails of grief from one woman — “This isn’t real!” — when the result became known.
Frisco is one of Texas’ fastest-growing cities and is dotted with dozens of modern school campuses and gleaming athletic facilities. The parents of Anthony and Metcalf have said they were good students who planned to go to college.
Several students testified that Metcalf, after ordering Anthony to leave his team’s tent, scoffed before Anthony reached into a bag and pulled out a knife.
One teen recalled Metcalf telling Anthony, “You don’t have anything in that backpack. It’s Frisco.”
