McKINNEY, Texas — The defense rested Monday in the murder trial of Karmelo Anthony, after a shortened day of testimony on the fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf.
Subscribe to read this story ad-free
Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.
Metcalf, 17, was stabbed and mortally wounded on April 2, 2025, after ordering Anthony out from a section of bleachers under a tent belonging to Metcalf’s high school.
Anthony, 19, has claimed self-defense. He’s been charged with murder, which carries a sentence of five years to life in prison. Although Anthony was 17 at the time of the stabbing, Texas law considers 17-year-olds to be adults.
Closing arguments in the case are slated for Tuesday morning, after which the jury will start deliberations.
State District Judge John Roach Jr. has ordered the jury to be sequestered from the “outside world” at a hotel, with no access to television or phones and only an emergency number for family members.
The past few days of testimony were often emotional, as prosecutors played 911 calls and showed videos of the altercation and the aftermath, as well as graphic photos of Metcalf and his wounds. Family members of both Metcalf and Austin were in the courtroom.
The defense has focused on inconsistencies in some witnesses’ testimony.
Metcalf’s attorneys have downplayed race as an issue in the case — Anthony is Black and Metcalf, white. Both were student athletes at crosstown rival schools with high grade-point averages.
But race has been at issue on social media, in protests outside the courthouse and after no Black jurors were selected for the trial.
A string of witnesses, largely classmates and teammates of Metcalf, gave accounts during the trial.
Their testimony depicted a rainy day dispute after Anthony, an athlete at Centennial High School in Frisco, Texas, sat underneath the tent of Memorial High School, where Metcalf was a student and athlete.
Anthony’s track coach testified over the weekend that his team didn’t bring their own tent to the track meet at David Kuykendall Stadium, an athletic facility that serves all of Frisco’s school district.
Most prosecution witnesses said Anthony was the aggressor in the fight that preceded the stabbing. But there were conflicting details in their testimony. While some said Metcalf gave a hard, two-handed push to Anthony before the stabbing, others said it was one-handed, a jab or a tap.
The witnesses said things got heated when Metcalf or others ordered Anthony out of the tent. But they disagreed on whether Metcalf was joined by others, including his twin brother, in trying to get Anthony to leave.
Anthony knew one of the athletes in the tent, 18-year-old Edwin Parra, whom prosecutors called the “common denominator” between Anthony and Memorial High School.
Although Parra tried to distance himself from Anthony in his testimony Saturday, defense attorneys showed photos of him with Anthony at family gatherings, as well as text and other social media messaging between the two.
Roach, the judge, issued a court order prohibiting using the names of any witnesses who were minors.
In Monday testimony, a 17-year-old teammate of Anthony’s said that his team had sought refuge from the rain under the field’s baseball dugout, but soon was ordered to leave by a baseball coach. The rain stopped briefly. But when it restarted, Anthony headed to the Memorial tent, the witness, a Centennial High School rising senior, testified.
The witness said he was on the field testing his spiked track shoes when yelling suddenly broke out, catching the teen’s attention.
“When I looked up … I heard a sound not like yelling, but louder voices than usual and when I looked over, people were looking back, and so it caught my attention at that point,” he said.
The commotion worried him enough that he told police his friend might need help.
After slowly walking closer, he saw a push between people and arms and elbows flaring, louder yelling and more people standing. He said he thought someone had been stung by a bee, causing the chaos.
When he next saw Anthony, he was crying and a coach was holding him and comforting him, he said. The witness said he overheard Anthony say, “I told him not to touch me.”
Earlier in the trial other witnesses had said Anthony made similar warnings to Metcalf before things escalated.
Under prosecutors’ questioning, the witness agreed that his previous belief that Anthony was surrounded when the stabbing happened was incorrect. That narrative has been circulated on social media.
But on cross-examination, the teen also agreed that people were sitting all around Anthony under the tent.
He also acknowledged when he was requestioned by the defense that he did not see a large part of what happened and did not know whether Anthony’s actions were justified.
Prosecutors tried to show Anthony should have been warming up with his teammates and could have stood under the bleachers when it began raining. State prosecutor Bill Wirskye underscored that when the Centennial coach told team members to leave the track because of the rain, they followed his instructions.
“Someone asks you to leave, you leave, right?” Wirskye said. “Yes, sir,” the teen witness responded.
Earlier, a 17-year-old Frisco High School student also entering his senior year said track-and-field athletes tend to be more social and it’s not uncommon for students to enter another team’s tent.
After that witness said he did not recall seeing someone pushed or hit, defense attorney Mike Howard noted that the witness had said in a statement to police after the stabbing that “the kid that got hit, does a ‘swing-like motion.’” The teen witness agreed he had made that statement, but said on Monday he couldn’t remember whether it happened.
Before releasing jurors for the evening, Roach admonished them not to discuss the case outside of deliberations and warned them not to look up anything online, including social media, because “they don’t know anything.”
The judge said the charge to the jury — instructions on the charges, legal questions to answer and burden of proof needed to reach a verdict — will be long and would be given Tuesday morning.
Suzanne Gamboa reported from Austin, Texas, and Maria Guerrero and Meredith Yeomans reported from McKinney, Texas.