McKINNEY, Texas — A Texas jury found Karmelo Anthony guilty Tuesday of the 2025 murder of Austin Metcalf, a fellow high school student at a Dallas-area track meet.

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The verdict, reached in less than three hours and read by Texas District Court Judge John Roach Jr., carries with it a sentence of five years to life in prison. Anthony was 17 at the time, but Texas law allowed him to be charged as an adult. He is now 19.

Some in the courtroom reacted with cries and Metcalf’s twin brother, who made his first appearance in the courtroom, leaned forward. Anthony’s mother wept. Roach had warned people in the courtroom to control their emotions when the verdict was read. Anthony’s attorney kept an arm wrapped around him.

Metcalf, 17, was fatally stabbed on April 2, 2025, as the track teams of Anthony’s Centennial High School and Metcalf’s Memorial High School participated in a district-wide meet in Frisco, a Dallas suburb.

Anthony admitted to the stabbing, but his legal team argued he acted in self-defense after he’d 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, under the pressure of physical intimidation.

Metcalf died in his twin brother’s arms that rainy day, their father said.

Before sentencing, Anthony’s mother gave a tearful statement asking the jury to “please have mercy on my son.” She said he is her oldest son who she said “is very sorry for what he did.”

In closing arguments, Anthony’s attorney Mike Howard told jurors that prosecutors failed to prove his client did “anything but defend himself” after Metcalf and others became enraged that Anthony was in their high school’s tent.

Howard had sought to establish during the trial that going to rival teams’ tents and socializing is customary at meets, that Anthony was invited to the tent and that Metcalf and his twin brother, standing nearby, were physically intimidating.

“Is it reasonable to worry these kids might jump in, that (Metcalf’s brother) might pop in to defend (Metcalf) … because the split second of chaos is you can’t know what’s about to happen,” he said.

Prosecuting attorney Bill Wirskye rebutted that depiction of events, saying it was Anthony who threatened Metcalf when he warned, “touch me and find out,” quoting a trial witness.

The stabbing “is murder, murder, murder,” Wirskye said.

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.

He said while some are saying the events were a tragedy for everyone involved, it’s not a tragedy for Anthony. “It’s the decisions he made and that he has to come to terms with,” Wirskye said.

During the trial several witnesses, many of them friends or teammates of Metcalf, 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 Anthony’s former friend who invited him to the tent and was close to Metcalf.

Some of the key witnesses were under 18, and Judge Roach issued an order preventing the publication of their names.

A school resource officer testified that, after the stabbing, Anthony said he’d warned Metcalf not to touch him, but he also said Anthony said he had committed the stabbing and asked if Metcalf was going to be ok .

Metcalf was the MVP of his football team and had a 4.0 GPA, his father, Jeff Metcalf, has said. “He was loved by many. He was a leader,” the elder Metcalf said.

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 on house arrest. He was permitted to graduate under an agreement between advocates and the Frisco Independent School District, according to the station.

The case’s racial components — Metcalf was white and Anthony is Black — were debated online. A couple of weeks after Metcalf’s death, a participant in the Jan. 6 attack on the capital, pardoned by President Donald Trump, led a small protest at the stadium as leader of the group “Protect White America.” It drew counterprotestors and was denounced by Metcalf’s father.

Last week, civil rights organization Next Generation Action Network, which advocated in favor of Anthony, denounced the racial composition of the jury, noting that not one juror is Black.

Metcalf’s attorneys have downplayed race as an issue in the case.

Suzanne Gamboa reported from Austin, Texas, Maria Guerrero reported from McKinney, Texas and Dennis Romero reported from Los Angeles.