Texas Teen Karmelo Anthony Convicted of Murder, Sentenced to 35 Years in High School Track-Meet Stabbing

A Texas jury on June 9 convicted Karmelo Anthony of murder and sentenced him to 35 years in prison for fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet, closing one of the most closely watched criminal cases of the past year.

The killing took place in April 2025 at a district track meet in Frisco, a Dallas suburb. Prosecutors said Anthony, now 19, was sitting under a tent belonging to Metcalf's Memorial High School team when Metcalf asked him to move. The confrontation escalated, and Anthony pulled a knife from a bag and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest, killing him. The defense argued Anthony acted in self-defense after being shoved. The case had become a lightning rod in the months before trial, in part because Anthony was initially released on a sharply reduced bond and placed on house arrest, a decision that fueled outrage among critics and prompted competing online fundraising campaigns that pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars for both families.

Jurors rejected that account, deliberating for less than three hours before returning a guilty verdict. "You don't get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove," prosecutor Bill Wirskye told the panel. Defense attorney Mike Howard countered that "Texas law does not require that you wait until you get hit," urging jurors to weigh his client's fear in the moment.

The sentencing hearing was emotional. Austin's father, Jeff Metcalf, addressed Anthony directly, telling him, "You failed your parents, you failed yourself and you failed society." Anthony's mother, Kala Hayes, pleaded for leniency, saying, "He's very sorry for what he did. Please, have mercy on my son." The 35-year sentence fell well short of the maximum but ensures Anthony will spend much of his adult life behind bars; under Texas law he must serve a substantial portion before becoming eligible for parole.

The case became a national flashpoint in the months between the stabbing and the trial, drawing intense debate over race, the limits of self-defense claims and the presence of weapons on school grounds. Both families faced waves of online attention, and rival fundraising campaigns drew hundreds of thousands of dollars. The defense signaled it would explore an appeal. With the verdict, a case that played out for more than a year in the court of public opinion finally reached a legal conclusion — though the bitter divisions it exposed showed little sign of fading. For the Metcalf family, the conviction offered a measure of accountability for the loss of a son; for Anthony's supporters, it confirmed fears that a teenager would spend decades in prison over a confrontation that lasted seconds.