McKINNEY, Texas \u2014 Karmelo Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison Tuesday, just hours after a Texas jury found him guilty of murder in the 2025 killing of Austin Metcalf, a fellow high school student, at a Dallas-area track meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The verdict, reached in less than three hours and read by Texas District Court Judge John Roach Jr., could have carried a maximum of 99 years. Anthony was 17 at the time, but Texas law allowed him to be charged as an adult. He is now 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the subsequent sentencing phase Tuesday evening, the jury rejected defense arguments that Anthony\u2019s attack was carried out under \u201csudden passion,\u201d which could have reduced his time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some in the courtroom reacted with cries, and Metcalf\u2019s twin brother, Hunter, who made his first appearance in the courtroom, leaned forward. Anthony\u2019s mother wept. Roach had warned people in the courtroom to control their emotions when the verdict was read. Anthony\u2019s attorney kept an arm wrapped around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Metcalf, 17, was fatally stabbed on April 2, 2025, as the track teams of Anthony\u2019s Centennial High School and Metcalf\u2019s Memorial High School participated in a districtwide meet in Frisco, a Dallas suburb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anthony admitted the stabbing, but his legal team argued he acted in self-defense, under the pressure of physical intimidation, after he had sat in the bleachers under the tent of rival high school Memorial and was confronted by members of its track team and told to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Metcalf died in Hunter\u2019s arms that rainy day, their father said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Anthony was sentenced, Metcalf\u2019s mother, Meghan, spoke, calling her son a \u201cpeacemaker\u201d and \u201cprotector\u201d and saying her loss will outlast Anthony\u2019s time behind bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou may have just been given a sentence of 35 years,\u201d she said in court, addressing Anthony. \u201cYou should feel lucky, because I\u2019ve been sentenced to a life without my son.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Father Jeff also spoke, announcing the establishment of a scholarship in his late son\u2019s name and addressing the issue of race \u2014 Metcalf was white and Anthony is Black \u2014 which had been debated online and bled into the real-world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeff Metcalf said \u201cthis was never about race or politics\u201d and emphasized that \u201cWe\u2019re all humans. We all bleed the same color.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He told Anthony not too look down as he spoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The murder, he said, came down to \u201chow you were raised with values and character. My kids have a wide array of friends. They weren\u2019t bullies. They weren\u2019t racists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said it was time for Anthony to face the consequences of his actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were robbed,\u201d Jeff Metcalf said, later adding that he feels \u201cpure unfiltered rage\u201d about his son\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hunter, Metcalf\u2019s twin, said he spent much of the last year learning how to forgive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou took someone from me who was supposed to be uncle, godfather to my kids,\u201d he said. \u201cNow I want everything taken from you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou let the devil take over in that moment,\u201d he told Anthony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After his statement, Hunter Metcalf returned to teenage friends and supporters in court and was received with hugs. Anthony was taken away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The defense had called only Anthony\u2019s mother to speak on his behalf before sentencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She gave a tearful statement asking the jury to \u201cplease have mercy on my son.\u201d She said he is her oldest and \u201cis very sorry for what he did.\u201d Anthony wept during her testimony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jurors were instructed to consider whether Anthony acted under the influence of \u201csudden passion,\u201d which reduces the maximum penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense attorney Mike Howard told jurors that the law recognizes that \u201cdecisions made in the heat of the moment are different than decisions that come after reflection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But prosecutor Dewey Mitchell tried to sway jurors to impose a harsher sentence, saying, \u201cWhether you like it or not, mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In closing arguments earlier, Howard told jurors that prosecutors failed to prove his client did \u201canything but defend himself\u201d after Metcalf and others became enraged that Anthony was in their high school\u2019s tent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Howard had sought to establish during the trial that going to rival teams\u2019 tents and socializing is customary at meets, that Anthony was invited to the tent and that Metcalf and Hunter, standing nearby, were physically intimidating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIs it reasonable to worry these kids might jump in, that Hunter might pop in to defend his brother … because the split second of chaos is you can\u2019t know what\u2019s about to happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prosecuting attorney Bill Wirskye rebutted that depiction of events, saying it was Anthony who threatened Metcalf when he warned, \u201cTouch me and find out,\u201d quoting a trial witness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stabbing \u201cis murder, murder, murder,\u201d Wirskye said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wirskye maintained that the encounter was one-on-one and that others under the tent had not turned on him. Video shown during the trial supported that argument, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that while some say the events were a tragedy for everyone involved, it\u2019s not a tragedy for Anthony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the decisions he made and that he has to come to terms with,\u201d Wirskye said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the trial, several witnesses, many of them friends or teammates of Metcalf\u2019s, said Metcalf at one point pushed Anthony to get him to move. There was some disagreement among them over how hard the push was. But several maintained Anthony bore primary responsibility, including a former friend of Anthony\u2019s who invited him to the tent and was close to Metcalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the key witnesses were under 18, and Roach issued an order preventing publishing their names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A school resource officer testified that, after the stabbing, Anthony said he\u2019d warned Metcalf not to touch him, but he also said Anthony said he had committed the stabbing and asked whether Metcalf was going to be OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Metcalf was the MVP of his football team and had a 4.0 GPA, his father, Jeff Metcalf, has said. \u201cHe was loved by many. He was a leader,\u201d the elder Metcalf said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anthony had a 3.7 GPA going into the last weeks of the school year in 2025, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported. He posted $250,000 bond and was placed under house arrest. He was permitted to graduate under an agreement between advocates and the Frisco Independent School District, according to the station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case\u2019s racial components were debated online. A couple of weeks after Metcalf\u2019s death, a participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, pardoned by President Donald Trump, led a small protest at the stadium as leader of the group \u201cProtect White America.\u201d It drew counterprotesters and was denounced by Metcalf\u2019s father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week, the Next Generation Action Network, a civil rights organization that advocated in favor of Anthony, denounced the racial composition of the jury, noting that not one juror is Black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prosecutors had downplayed race as an issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After sentencing, Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis spoke outside the courthouse. He praised prosecutors and the jury for delivering accountability, and commended the teenagers who testified and \u201cdid the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Willis also thanked the broader Collin County community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI asked our community to ignore all the noise and instead be levelheaded and patient as the process worked,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd today, the process delivered accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n