Texas teen sentenced to 35 years for k!lling fellow student at track meet

A Texas teenager accused of fatally st@bbing one of his peers at a high school athletics event in the Dallas area was found guilty by a jury on Tuesday, June  9, and was sentenced to 35 years in jail.

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A jury found the now-19-year-old Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder for fatally st@bbing Austin Metcalf during a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas, in 2025. Both were 17 at the time of the incident.

Prosecutors alleged that Anthony, then a student at Centennial High School, entered a tent for Memorial High School and began the confrontation with Metcalf, who was a student at Memorial. Anthony’s attorneys argued that Metcalf and his twin brother began the physical altercation with Anthony and that Anthony stabbed Metcalf in self-defense.

“There is no evidence Karmelo did anything but really think he was defending himself in that split second of chaos,” Anthony’s attorney Mike Howard told the jury Tuesday before deliberations began.

Prosecutor Bill Wirskye disputed this justification, telling jurors, “You don’t get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove.”

Judge John Roach enforced strict rules for the trial, including enforcing a gag order preventing parties in the trial from publicly discussing the case and barring cameras and electronic devices from the courtroom.

The Dallas-area case drew national attention and stoked racial tensions as well. Anthony is Black and Metcalf was white, though prosecutors argued that race was not a factor in the confrontation between the students.

Critics also raised concerns that all Black potential jurors were excluded from the trial.