State v. Karmelo Anthony: What You Need to Know Before the Jury Decides
How Will The Jury Decide?
On April 2, 2025, two teenage strangers found themselves in the same tent at a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas. By the end of that morning, one of them was dead. What happened in between is what a Collin County jury is now being asked to decide.
Austin Metcalf was a 17-year-old junior at Memorial High School, an MVP linebacker with a 3.97 GPA who had a twin brother, Hunter, with whom he played football. Karmelo Anthony was a student athlete, with a 3.7 GPA, at Centennial High School, also in Frisco. The two did not know each other. 
The incident unfolded when a thunderstorm delayed the track championship. Hunter Metcalf told Anthony to leave the Memorial team’s tent. Austin then confronted Anthony. During the argument, Anthony allegedly reached into his backpack while warning Metcalf not to touch him. Metcalf pushed him. Anthony then pulled out a knife and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest.  Metcalf ran down the bleachers, grabbed his chest, and asked those around him for help. He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Anthony surrendered immediately. He told the responding officer he was protecting himself, and at one point said unprompted, “I’m not alleged. I did it.” He asked whether Metcalf was going to be okay and whether what he did could be considered self-defense. 
He was charged as an adult under Texas law and indicted on first-degree murder in June 2025. He has maintained a not guilty plea, with self-defense as the central argument.
The trial began June 1, 2026 in McKinney, Texas. Prosecutors called 21 witnesses, fewer than the roughly 35 initially anticipated.  The medical examiner testified about the fatal 2-inch stab wound to Metcalf’s heart. Student witnesses from Memorial High School described Anthony as the aggressor who refused to leave the team’s tent before the stabbing. 
The defense rested Monday without calling Anthony to testify and 6 witnesses, leaving jurors to weigh the self-defense claim without hearing directly from him, experts or any character witnesses.  Closing arguments are set for Tuesday, after which the jury will begin deliberations under sequestration, with no access to television, phones, or outside information. 
If convicted, Anthony faces up to 99 years in prison. 
This case has never just been about a tent at a track meet. It became a cesspool for racial slurs and insults, while conversations about race, self-defense laws, online harassment, made it apparent that we are living in 2 different realities. Both families have been doxxed, swatted, and forced from their jobs. The judge who reduced Anthony’s bond received death threats. Through all of it, the courtroom remained the only place where the facts, and only the facts, were supposed to matter.
Now it is in the jury’s hands.