Karmelo Anthony, the Texas teenager convicted over a deadly stabbing at a high school track meet, has been found guilty of murder following roughly three hours of jury deliberations.
A Collin County jury returned the verdict in McKinney, Texas, on Tuesday, June 9, rejecting Anthony’s claim that he acted in self-defense when he fatally stabbed fellow track athlete Austin Metcalf during a confrontation at a Frisco ISD event.
Anthony, now 19, was 17 when he stabbed Metcalf, also 17, during an altercation on April 2, 2025. He had pleaded not guilty and maintained the stabbing happened in ‘self-defense’.
The incident took place at a track and field event at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, where a disagreement reportedly began over seating beneath a team tent during rainy weather.
Metcalf, an 11th-grade student at Frisco Memorial High School, and Anthony, then a student at Frisco Centennial High School, attended different schools and prosecutors said the two did not know each other before the confrontation.
Witnesses said Metcalf asked Anthony to leave the area under the Memorial High School tent, but Anthony refused to move.
Metcalf was then said to have pushed Anthony by the shoulders, after which Anthony took a knife from his backpack and stabbed him once in the chest.
During the trial, jurors heard that the stab wound pierced Metcalf’s heart. He was taken to hospital, where he died from his injuries.
When he was taken into custody, Anthony told the responding officer “I was protecting myself”.
His defense attorneys supported that account in court, arguing the teenager acted out of ‘fear’.
His lawyer Mike Howard told the court: “In that split second, Melo has a decision to make: how and when to act. Self-defense is useless if you wait too late to defend yourself. He reacts in a split second of fear, chaos.
“After Karmelo defended himself with that knife, he ran. He didn’t stab again. He dropped the knife. He didn’t stab anyone else.”
Anthony did not testify in his own defense during the trial.
However, other witnesses challenged the defense’s version of events. One testified that Anthony kept his hands concealed in his backpack until Metcalf pushed his shoulders in an attempt to get him to leave the tent. The witness said Anthony then produced a knife and stabbed Metcalf.
“That’s lethal force against non-lethal,” the 17-year-old witness said, per New York Post.
Prosecutors argued Anthony provoked the confrontation and used a hidden knife against an unarmed teenager. Collin County District Attorney Bill Wirskye told jurors in closing arguments: “You don’t get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove.”
Before jurors began deliberating, Judge John Roach allowed them to consider the lesser offense of manslaughter, but the jury instead convicted Anthony of murder.
The case drew national attention, with debate online and outside the courthouse over self-defense, race and school safety. Anthony is Black and Metcalf was white, though lawyers on both sides told jurors the killing was not about race.
After jurors returned the guilty verdict on Tuesday June 9, they moved straight into the sentencing phase to decide Anthony’s punishment.
Anthony’s mother, Kala Hayes, was the only witness called during the punishment phase. She asked jurors for mercy, saying: “He’s very sorry for what he did. Please, have mercy on my son.”
Under Texas law, a murder conviction is punishable by five to 99 years or life in prison, as well as a fine of up to $10,000. His lawyers, however, asked jurors to consider whether the killing happened under ‘sudden passion’.
In Texas, ‘sudden passion’ is not a separate acquittal or a finding that undoes the murder conviction. If jurors find it applies at the punishment stage, the offense is punished as a second-degree felony instead, reducing the prison range to between two and 20 years, with a possible fine.
In closing statements during sentencing, prosecutor Bill Wirskye explained to jurors that ‘sudden passion,’ aka ‘heat of passion,’ refers to passion directly caused by provocation from the person who was killed.
Prosecutors argued that standard did not apply in this case, saying Anthony was the person responsible for provoking the confrontation and that ‘sudden passion’ did not fit the circumstances.
If jurors reject the sudden passion argument, Anthony will face the standard murder punishment range of five to 99 years or life in prison.