They worked together for years. Now these lawyers are on opposite sites for 1st time in Karmelo Anthony trial.

High-profile criminal cases are nothing new to Toby Shook and Bill Wirskye.

The longtime friends have prosecuted some of the state’s most notorious criminals over their decades-long careers. They worked on a few of the cases together, and between them, helped send roughly two dozen murderers to Texas’ death row. For a while, they were partners in the same law firm, their last names on the front door of the offices of Shook, Gunter & Wirskye in downtown Dallas.

Last week, for the first time, the two lined up on opposite sides of the courtroom for another well-known case.

Wirskye is working to convince a jury that Karmelo Anthony murdered fellow student-athlete Austin Metcalf during a confrontation at a Frisco high school track meet last year. Shook is part of the team trying to persuade the panel that Anthony stabbed Metcalf in self-defense.

Anthony could face up to life in prison if convicted. His trial began last week in Collin County and is expected to wrap up by the end of this week. The case has drawn outsized attention since day one, attracting protesters outside the courthouse and stoking racial animosity online. Anthony is Black. Metcalf was white.

Wirskye, at nearly 6 feet, 8 inches tall, towers over his longtime friend as they pass each other in the courtroom. The two have barely acknowledged each other during the first few days of testimony and evidence in the case. 

Lawyers who have worked alongside them said one thing is sure during the trial: Both attorneys will know every detail about the case and every facet of the law that applies to it.

Related: Karmelo Anthony trial begins with competing theories of murder, self-defense

“They know the law backwards and forwards,” said Dallas criminal defense attorney Dan Hagood, a former law partner of both Shook and Wirskye. “They will both be immensely prepared.” 

Rex Gunter, another Dallas criminal defense attorney who also has been law partners with both men, agreed.

“I don’t know any lawyers who are smarter than them,” Gunter said. “I don’t think I know anyone as smart as them.”

Shook and Wirskye first began working together in the mid-1990s, when they were prosecutors in the Dallas County district attorney’s office. There, they worked side-by-side on some of their most infamous cases. 

They prosecuted members of the Texas 7, a group of inmates who killed an Irving police officer on Christmas Eve 2000 after breaking out of a South Texas prison. Six of the men were apprehended a couple of weeks later; the seventh died by suicide before he could be taken into custody. 

Shook secured guilty verdicts and death sentences for all six surviving members, although one, Randy Halprin, had his conviction reversed on appeal and is awaiting a new trial. Wirskye assisted Shook in two of the cases. 

In 2013, they teamed up to prosecute the revenge killings of two prosecutors and a prosecutor’s wife by former lawyer and Justice of the Peace Eric Lyle Williams. 

Testimony during the trial showed that Williams fatally shot Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, McLelland’s wife, Cynthia, and Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse in retaliation after the two men prosecuted Williams for stealing computer monitors from a county office building.   

That time, Shook and Wirskye got involved before there was even an arrest. They were appointed special prosecutors, with Wirskye serving in the lead position, just days after the slayings, helping local and federal authorities solve the case.

They also appeared together on shows like Dateline NBC and 48 Hours to discuss how they quickly zeroed in on Williams and convinced a jury to convict and sentence him to death. Williams’ wife, Kim, who assisted in the shootings and testified for the prosecution, got 40 years in prison.

Shook and Wirskye were later awarded the Lone Star Prosecutor Award, which recognizes the best prosecutor in the state, for their work in the Williams case. At the two men’s insistence, the entire team of lawyers, investigators and support staff that assisted them was included. It was the second time Shook won the prestigious award, and it would be one of many accolades the two men would collect over the years.

Because of a gag order issued by the judge in the Anthony case, neither Shook nor Wirskye could comment for this story.

Shook left the Dallas County district attorney’s office in 2006 after working there 23 years and securing more than 20 death sentences. He was chief of the felony trial section at the time and had just lost the race for district attorney to Craig Watkins. 

Wirskye, the office’s chief felony prosecutor when Shook lost the election, also left at that time. The two joined the law firm of Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl in 2007, where they worked together as criminal defense attorneys for three years before Wirskye started a solo practice. They teamed up again in 2011 as partners in the law firm Shook, Gunter & Wirskye. 

Wirskye returned to prosecuting in 2015 after Susan Hawk defeated Watkins in the Dallas County district attorney’s race. Hawk fired him a few months later, which she told The Dallas Morning News was due to conflicting personalities, and he was soon hired by Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis. 

Wirskye is second in command in the office and has prosecuted many of its most high-profile cases, including the 2018 fatal shooting of Richardson police officer David Sherrard. Wirskye later won a capital murder conviction and death sentence for the officer’s killer, Brandon McCall. The other death sentences he has obtained have been when he worked with Shook on the two Texas 7 cases and the one in Kaufman County. 

As a defense lawyer, Shook has continued to take on noteworthy cases, including defending former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who was convicted of murder in 2018 in the fatal shooting of Botham Jean in his Cedars apartment. Guyger, who argued she mistook Jean as an intruder, was sentenced to 10 years and became eligible for parole in 2024.

In 2021, Shook successfully defended former Dallas police officer Brian Riser after the officer was accused of hiring a hitman to kill two people who had been fatally shot four years earlier. Shook convinced a judge and prosecutors to drop the charges several weeks later, and the city agreed to pay Riser for the three years he spent under investigation. 

Hagood and Gunter, the lawyers who have worked in private practice with Wirskye and Shook, said the men share a lot of the same skills and attributes. Both work tirelessly on their cases and are prepared for anything that may come their way.

“There will be no surprises,” in the Anthony trial, Gunter said. “They will both be immensely prepared and will know every detail about the case. Their intelligence, their hard work and their ability to recall so much information is what makes them so good.”

Despite all their success in the courtroom, both attorneys are modest, Hagood said. 

“There’s a saying that if you give a lawyer a minute, he’ll take an hour to brag about himself,” Hagood said. “These two don’t do that. They do their talking in the courtroom, not outside of it. They’re very modest, but their skills are unparalleled.”

Spectators at the Anthony trial shouldn’t expect to see any fireworks from the attorneys, Hagood said, because that’s not their style.

“You don’t win cases with personality and pizazz,” he said. “You win cases with preparation and skill.”

On Saturday, Wirskye rested his case in the Anthony trial after calling multiple coaches, athletes and first responders to the witness stand. Shook and lead defense attorney Mike Howard began calling witnesses late Saturday afternoon and will continue when the trial resumes Monday.