MCKINNEY, Texas (AP) — A lawyer for a Texas teen charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of a high school athlete emphasized self-defense Tuesday, telling jurors that the tragedy at a track meet was linked to the victim aggressively trying to control who could be in a team tent.
“Austin Metcalf had no legal right to use force to eject Karmelo Anthony from that tent,” Michael Howard said during closing arguments. “He had no legal right to put his
hands on Karmelo.”
Anthony, now 19, did not testify in his own defense over the killing of Metcalf, whose death stunned Frisco, a booming Dallas suburb, where the two students attended different schools. If convicted of murder, he faces up to life in prison.
Judge John Roach Jr. told the jury that it also could consider a lesser charge of manslaughter when deliberations begin.
Over the course of a nearly weeklong trial, Anthony's attorneys have sought to show that he was forced to defend himself under a tent belonging to the track team of Frisco Memorial High School, where Metcalf was in his junior year.
Several schools were competing on that rainy day in April 2025, and Metcalf and others had repeatedly told Anthony to leave, witnesses testified, leading to an escalating confrontation.
Trial witnesses described Anthony as the aggressor. Several students testified that Metcalf pushed Anthony, who then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.
Prosecutors called the stabbing an unjustified attack and not a case of self-defense.
Testimony at the trial leaned heavily on the recollections of teenagers who described being shocked. Many questions centered on team culture at track meets and the confrontation in the tent.
One teammate told jurors that Anthony was “distraught” after the stabbing. Roach ordered that the names of teenage witnesses not be made public.
“I was hearing him say, ‘I told him not to touch me,’” the teenager said.
The death last year quickly drew wide attention, in part because of social media posts that amplified the case in racial terms. Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white.
After the stabbing, Jeff Metcalf, Austin's father, condemned those who seized on the race of the teens. Prosecutors also opened the trial by saying race had nothing to do with the case.
