Karmelo Anthony convicted of murder in fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf

McKINNEY – A jury sentenced Karmelo Anthony to 35 years in prison Tuesday evening, bringing to a close a murder trial that has shaken Frisco, drawn national attention and fueled racially charged rhetoric online.

Jurors deliberated for about 2.5 hours before making their sentencing decision, which was read aloud in the courtroom. They also decided Anthony, 19, did not act with “sudden passion” in the 2025 track meet stabbing, a caveat that could have reduced his punishment. The sentencing received a muted reaction in the courtroom.

The panel returned the sentence the same day they convicted Anthony of murder in the April 2, 2025, death of Austin Metcalf at the high school track meet. Both were 17 at the time. The panel rejected the defense’s argument of self-defense and plea for a lesser charge of manslaughter.

Anthony kept his head down as the verdict was read earlier Tuesday, his eyes appearing to squint. Defense attorney Mike Howard had one arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.

The guilty verdict came after nearly three hours of deliberation. The Collin County case has attracted national attention from the start and fueled months of racist vitriol on social media. Anthony is Black. Metcalf was white.

Anthony, a 17-year-old senior at Frisco Centennial High School at the time of the incident, will not have to pay a fine as part of the sentence, the jury decided.

In Texas, a defendant can choose to have a jury or judge determine the punishment. Anthony opted to have the jury sentence him.

For sentencing, the defense called only one witness: Kala Hayes, Anthony’s mother. 

Hayes held back tears as she told jurors that although Anthony is the oldest of her four children, he would always be her baby. Howard, Anthony’s lead defense attorney, asked whether her son regretted what he had done.

“Yes,” she answered. “I know my son, and he’s very sorry for what he did.”

Howard then asked whether there was anything she wanted the jury to consider.

“Please have mercy on my son,” she said.

Anthony sobbed softly as his mother spoke.

Assistant District Attorney Bill Wirskye asked Hayes whether she understood she would still be able to be part of her son’s life after he went to prison.

“Yes, I do,” she responded.

The state didn’t call anyone to testify during the punishment phase. 

During his last chance to address jurors, Wirskye didn’t ask them for a specific sentence, but urged them to impose a lengthy term that “dignifies” the tremendous loss felt by Metcalf’s family and friends.  

“You are the conscience of this community,” the prosecutor said.

Howard asked the panel to consider “sudden passion,” a legal finding that could have reduced Anthony’s punishment from the standard range for murder to that of a second-degree felony. If the jury believed the teen acted in the heat of the moment, the sentencing range they must consider would be two to 20 years, rather than the five years to life that applies in first-degree cases.

Howard emphasized Anthony’s age and the chaotic environment captured on surveillance footage, suggesting he may have felt terror before stabbing Metcalf.

“I am not asking you to do what I want, what they want, or what anybody wants,” Howard told jurors. “You have to follow your heart.”

Wirskye described the defense’s sudden passion argument as “completely inapplicable to this case and this set of facts.”

“They got it wrong,” he said of the strategy.

The jury agreed, rejecting the “sudden passion” clause in their decision.

Wirskye, the lead prosecutor in the case, disputed the defense’s self-defense claims in his closing arguments Tuesday morning. He asked the panel to focus, in part, on Anthony’s apparent mindset when he came to a high school track meet with a knife in his bag.

Anthony’s decision to bring the weapon, his refusal to leave an opposing team’s tent after being told multiple times to get out, surveillance footage captured during the incident, and the witness testimony were enough for a murder conviction, Wirskye said.

The prosecutor also argued Anthony provoked Metcalf into pushing him — “You don’t get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoked the shove,” Wirskye told the panel — and dismissed the defense’s theory that Metcalf impaled himself on Anthony’s knife as “ludicrous.” 

In his arguments to the jury, Howard challenged the state’s portrayal of the case on multiple levels. He asserted that Metcalf did not have the legal authority to “put his hands on” Anthony.

“A hit, a shove, a push,” Howard told jurors, “Melo had an absolute right to defend himself from that.”

Howard revisited the Collin County medical examiner’s testimony in closing. He used a highlighter to demonstrate the possible angle of the knife wound on Metcalf, describing it as “awkward.”

The defense lawyer argued that an intentional, aggressive stabbing motion would have produced a different wound, suggesting instead that it was consistent with a hasty action taken in self-defense.

Before the closing arguments began, Roach told jurors they had two possible charges to consider: murder and manslaughter.

They took less than half a day to reach a verdict.

After the jury was escorted from the courtroom following sentencing, members of Metcalf’s family delivered victim impact statements.

His mother, Meghan Metcalf, described a once-happy home filled with laughter that has grown quiet since her son’s death. She recalled hugging him on the morning of the track meet, unaware it would be the last time she would see him.

She said Anthony should feel lucky to have received 35 years because she had been “sentenced to a lifetime without my son.”

Austin Metcalf’s father, Jeff Metcalf, spoke next as a slideshow of photos from the twins’ childhood played in the courtroom. Birthday parties. Fishing trips. Football games.

“People think grief is sadness. It’s not — it’s rage,” he said, slamming his hands on the witness stand with enough force that some people in the courtroom jumped. “Pure, unfiltered rage. It’s trauma. It’s replaying every detail until you feel physically sick. It’s carrying images and memories your brain resets, but you can’t shut off.”

At one point, Jeff Metcalf asked Anthony to look at him as he spoke. Anthony did not appear to look up.

“You can’t even look me in the eye right now, but you can stab my f—ing son in the heart,” he yelled, before apologizing to the judge.

Austin Metcalf’s twin brother, Hunter Metcalf, was the final family member to speak. He began by asking Anthony to look at him, saying he wanted a “little respect” but that he understood if Anthony could not do so.

Hunter Metcalf described the pain of losing his twin brother and how he had found some solace in his faith. He said he still did not understand why Anthony had taken so much from his family.

“Eventually, your name will be forgotten,” he told Anthony. “But my brother’s legacy will stay on.”

Anthony did not look up.