A Texas jury has found Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder for the stabbing death of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet in April 2025, in a verdict that drew emotional reactions in the courtroom and reignites debate about a case that became one of the most racially charged in recent American memory.
Anthony, who was 17 at the time of the killing and is now 19, was tried as an adult under Texas law. Judge John Roach Jr. read the verdict at McKinney’s Texas District Court, with the conviction carrying a sentence of five years to life in prison. As the verdict was announced, cries rang out in the courtroom. Metcalf’s twin brother, making his first appearance at the trial, leaned forward in his seat. Anthony’s mother wept. His attorney kept an arm around him throughout.
Austin Metcalf was fatally stabbed on 2 April 2025 during a district-wide track meet in Frisco, a Dallas suburb, as teams from Anthony’s Centennial High School and Metcalf’s Memorial High School competed together. Metcalf died in his twin brother’s arms in the rain that day, his father later said. He was the MVP of his football team and carried a 4.0 grade point average. “He was loved by many. He was a leader,” his father Jeff Metcalf said.
Anthony’s defence team argued he acted in self-defence after sitting in the bleachers under Memorial High’s tent and being confronted by members of the rival school’s track team who told him to leave. Defence attorney Mike Howard told jurors that prosecutors had failed to prove his client did “anything but defend himself” after Metcalf and others became physically intimidating. He argued that visiting rival teams’ tents to socialise was customary at such events and that Anthony had been invited there.
Prosecutors rejected that account entirely. Bill Wirskye told jurors that the confrontation was one-on-one, that others under the tent had not turned on Anthony, and that video evidence supported that position. He quoted trial witnesses who recalled Anthony warning Metcalf: “Touch me and find out.” Wirskye told the court the stabbing was “murder, murder, murder” and said Anthony’s decisions, not a tragic accident, had led to Metcalf’s death. A school resource officer testified that after the stabbing Anthony had admitted committing it and asked whether Metcalf was going to be all right.
The case’s racial dimension — Metcalf was white and Anthony is Black — generated intense and often heated debate online from the moment of the stabbing. A participant in the 6 January Capitol attack, pardoned by President Donald Trump, led a protest at the stadium weeks after Metcalf’s death as leader of a group called “Protect White America.” Metcalf’s father publicly denounced the demonstration. Last week, civil rights organisation Next Generation Action Network, which had advocated in favour of Anthony, condemned the racial composition of the jury, noting that not one of the jurors was Black, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. Attorneys for the Metcalf family have consistently downplayed race as a relevant factor in the case.
Anthony had a 3.7 grade point average, posted $250,000 bond after his arrest and was permitted to graduate under an agreement between his advocates and the Frisco Independent School District while on house arrest awaiting trial.
