Austin Metcalf Story: The Stabbing, Verdict, and Appeal

The Austin Metcalf stabbing was the April 2, 2025 killing of a 17-year-old Frisco Memorial High School student at a district track meet in Frisco, Texas. His killer, 17-year-old Karmelo Anthony of rival Frisco Centennial High School, was convicted of murder on June 9, 2026, and sentenced the next day to 35 years in prison. Anthony has filed an appeal.

What Happened at the Track Meet

The UIL district meet was underway at David Kuykendall Stadium on the morning of April 2, 2025. Heavy rain had pushed athletes into team tents in the bleachers, and students from different schools were mingling more than usual. Centennial did not have its own tent, and Anthony had wandered under the Memorial tent where Metcalf and his teammates were gathered.¹

What followed lasted roughly four to six minutes. Witnesses testified Anthony was asked to leave the tent more than ten times and refused, cursing at the students around him.² Metcalf reportedly told Anthony, “I’m not going to fight you at a track meet, dude.” Anthony responded, “Touch me and see what happens.”³ Accounts of what came next varied: some witnesses described a two-handed “lineman-style” shove from Metcalf; others said it was a lighter, one-handed motion.⁴

Anthony reached into his backpack, pulled out a folding knife, stabbed Metcalf once in the left side of the chest, and jogged away. A coach who encountered him moments later testified that Anthony said, “He put his hands on me. I stabbed him.”¹

The wound was fatal. Collin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Elizabeth Ventura testified that the blade perforated Metcalf’s pericardial sac and right ventricle, leaving a two-inch gaping wound with a penetration depth of two and a half inches. Metcalf was pronounced dead at 10:53 a.m., and his death was ruled a homicide.¹

The Weapon and the Security Gap

The knife was identified as an Ozark Trail 6-in-1 Multitool, a $13 Walmart product with a 3.5-inch serrated blade, a flashlight, and a glass breaker.⁵ Texas law permits minors to carry blades under 5.5 inches, but Frisco ISD policy prohibits weapons of any kind on school property. No one checked Anthony’s backpack at the stadium.¹

Trial testimony established there were no school resource officers or Frisco police inside or immediately outside Kuykendall Stadium at the time of the stabbing. Athletes passed through no metal detectors, and the nearest adult, a coach, was about 20 feet away when the confrontation turned violent. An SRO from an adjacent middle school and a nearby officer only responded after the stabbing came over police radio.¹

Arrest and Charge

Anthony was arrested at the scene. He made several spontaneous statements to officers: “I was protecting myself,” “I’m not alleged, I did it,” and “He put his hands on me, I told him not to.” He asked whether the incident “could be considered self-defense” and whether Metcalf was “going to be OK.”³ Officers recovered the bloody knife nearby.

Anthony was charged with first-degree murder and held in the Collin County jail on a $1 million bond. Because Texas classifies 17-year-olds as adults for criminal purposes, no juvenile-to-adult certification was needed.⁶ The death penalty was off the table because Anthony was a minor at the time of the crime.⁷

The Trial

Jury selection began June 1, 2026, at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney. State District Judge John Roach Jr. imposed a gag order and banned electronics from the courtroom. The trial ran four days, drew heavy security, and featured testimony from nearly two dozen prosecution witnesses along with defense witnesses.⁸

Lead prosecutor Bill Wirskye, the First Assistant District Attorney for Collin County, called the killing “senseless” and “plain and simple murder.” The state’s theory was that Anthony provoked the encounter by refusing to leave the tent, used the ensuing shove as a pretext, and answered non-lethal force with lethal force. Wirskye argued Anthony chose to bring a knife to a track meet and could have walked away.⁹ Evidence included the recovered knife, surveillance footage that did not capture the stabbing itself, and the medical examiner’s testimony.

Defense attorney Mike Howard argued self-defense, saying Anthony felt “fear and chaos” after being shoved while surrounded by students from a rival school.⁴ Howard argued that while Metcalf had the right to ask Anthony to leave, “he didn’t have any legal right to use force.”¹⁰ The defense also asked jurors to find “sudden passion” under Texas law, a finding that would have reduced the offense to a second-degree felony with a sentencing range of two to 20 years. Anthony did not testify at either phase of the trial.⁸

Verdict and Sentence

On June 9, 2026, after less than three hours of deliberation, the jury found Anthony guilty of murder, rejecting the lesser charge of manslaughter. During punishment, the jury also declined to find sudden passion.⁷ The murder charge carried a range of five years to life.

Anthony’s mother, Kayla Hayes, took the stand and asked for mercy: “He’s my oldest, he’s my firstborn, he will always be my baby. He’s very sorry for what he did.” Wirskye asked jurors for a life sentence, telling them that “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” The jury sentenced Anthony to 35 years. District Attorney Greg Willis said afterward that “the process delivered accountability.”⁴

Anthony is eligible for parole after serving 17.5 years of the 35-year sentence. He is incarcerated at the Wallace Pack Unit, a medium-security facility in Grimes County, Texas, holding roughly 1,400 inmates.¹¹

What the Metcalf Family Said in Court

After sentencing, members of Austin’s family addressed Anthony directly. His mother, Meghan Metcalf, told him he was “lucky you got 35 years, because I’ve been given a life sentence without my son.” She said her son “didn’t just die. He was taken from us.”¹²

Jeff Metcalf, Austin’s father, told Anthony, “We were robbed,” and described what grief had done to him: “My son’s death destroyed the person I used to be. People think grief is sadness; it is not. It is rage. Pure, unfiltered rage.” He said he had forgiven Anthony on the day of the stabbing but not his actions, and told him, “You can’t look me in the eyes, but you can stab my son?”¹³

Hunter Metcalf, Austin’s twin brother, born two minutes after him, asked Anthony to look him in the eye. “You took a son, a brother, a friend, and my best friend, from this world. Now I want everything taken from you. You took everything from me.” He told Anthony, “You still have air while my brother is six feet under. I wake up every morning and his door is still shut.”¹³ Hunter closed by telling Anthony his name would eventually be forgotten, “but my brother’s memory will live on.”¹⁴

Austin was a junior at Frisco Memorial with a 4.0 GPA who had been voted his track team’s most valuable player.¹⁵

The Jury Selection Dispute

A concrete legal issue sits beneath the appeal. During jury selection, prosecutors used peremptory strikes to remove the three remaining Black candidates from the panel. Their stated reason was that all three were educators. The defense objected under Batson v. Kentucky, the 1986 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits striking jurors on the basis of race. Judge Roach overruled the objection, accepting the state’s reason as race-neutral.¹⁶

The result was a jury with no Black members in a diverse county. Southern Methodist University professor Anna Offit said the absence of Black jurors in such a county “is a choice rather than an inevitability.”¹⁷ Wirskye defended the jury after trial, saying the panel “represented a diverse cross-section of our Collin County community.”¹⁸ Legal experts have noted that Batson challenges are notoriously difficult on appeal, because prosecutors need only offer a non-racial rationale for their strikes.¹⁶

The Appeal

Anthony’s legal team filed a notice of appeal on June 10, 2026, one day after sentencing.¹⁹ Howard said “there are several important issues for the appellate courts to consider.” The case has been assigned to the 5th District Court of Appeals in Dallas.²⁰ Appellate attorney David Coale has said that for the Batson issue to succeed on appeal, the defense would need to frame it as a question of law rather than a question of fact.²¹ Anthony has filed a pauper oath to request a court-appointed appellate attorney.¹⁷

Race, Harassment, and the Wider Fallout

Anthony is Black and Metcalf was white, and the case became a flashpoint that reached well beyond the courtroom. Anthony’s parents, Andrew Anthony and Kala Hayes, publicly rejected the verdict. Andrew Anthony described the trial as feeling like a “setup” and questioned whether the outcome would have differed without an all-white jury.²² Hayes said she believed the jury’s decision was predetermined.²³ Activist Dominique Alexander said the verdict showed “Black lives do not matter in Collin County,” and the Collin County NAACP publicly questioned the fairness of the proceedings. Cardi B and U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett criticized the sentencing.

On verdict day, white supremacist demonstrators appeared outside the courthouse, framing the case as “Black-on-white violence.”²⁴ Two people were arrested outside the courthouse that day, one for public intoxication and one on a weapons warrant.²⁵

Both families were harassed. Jeff Metcalf told the court he had been “swatted” six times, and his wife twice.¹³ The Anthony family reported death threats and being forced to relocate. They raised over $500,000 for legal defense and faced online harassment alleging misuse of those funds. Frisco Police Chief David Shilson issued public warnings against “misinformation, hate, fear, and division” circulating online.²⁴ A Texas parole supervisor, Donna Robinson, was fired over a Facebook post about the case.²²

Jeff Metcalf consistently rejected the racial framing. “I said from Day 1 this was never about race,” he said in his victim impact remarks. “It’s about right and wrong.”¹³

Changes at Track Meets After the Killing

Frisco ISD changed how track meets are run. The District 11-5A meet was moved from Kuykendall Stadium to Lobo Stadium in Little Elm. At subsequent meets, everyone entering the stadium was subject to bag searches and metal detectors. Police vehicles were stationed near entrances, and officers from multiple departments patrolled the grounds. Team tents were spaced apart, and Centennial High School began requiring its athletes to stay with their own teams rather than mingle under other schools’ tents.²⁶

1
NBC DFW. Frisco Track Meet Stabbing: The Tragic Perfect Storm
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Court TV. Teen Eyewitnesses Detail Track Meet Stabbing
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ABC News. Texas Track Meet Stabbing Arrest Report Details
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ABC News. Karmelo Anthony Murder Trial Verdict Reached
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New York Post. Knife Karmelo Anthony Used to Kill Austin Metcalf Was $13 Walmart Blade
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NewsNation. Karmelo Anthony Murder Trial
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BBC News. Karmelo Anthony Guilty of Murder
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Houston Public Media. Karmelo Anthony Sentenced to 35 Years
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Dallas Morning News. Karmelo Anthony Trial Updates: Closing Arguments
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New York Post. Karmelo Anthony’s Lawyer Blames Austin Metcalf in Closing Argument
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Newsweek. Karmelo Anthony Update: Prison Conditions and Next Steps in Appeal Process
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NewsNation. Austin Metcalf’s Mom Statement After Sentencing
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Fox 4 News. Karmelo Anthony Sentenced, Austin Metcalf Family Reacts
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New York Post. Austin Metcalf’s Twin Brother Delivers Rebuke to Karmelo Anthony
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WAFB. Twin Brother Accepts Posthumous Diploma
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Dallas Morning News. Frisco Track Meet Stabbing Jury Selection Nears
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Houston Public Media. Karmelo Anthony Appeals Collin County Murder Conviction
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CBS News Texas. Prosecutor Breaks Silence After Trial, Defends Verdict and Jury Selection
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USA Today. Karmelo Anthony Trial Case Appeal Latest
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CBS News Texas. Karmelo Anthony Appeal Murder Conviction
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CBS News Texas. Karmelo Anthony’s Appeal: Jury Selection and Legal Errors
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Forbes. How Karmelo Anthony’s Stabbing Case Became a Racial Flashpoint in Texas
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Yahoo Sports. Karmelo Anthony’s Parents Speak After Guilty Verdict
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NewsNation. Karmelo Anthony Trial: Race and Justice Debate
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WFAA. Karmelo Anthony Track Meet Stabbing Trial Live Updates
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Dallas Morning News. Appropriate Security Measures in Place for District Meet