Texas judge releases grisly evidence from murder trial of Karmelo Anthony

MCKINNEY, Texas (CN) - A Texas judge publicly released grisly evidence Friday evening in the fallout of Karmelo Anthony’s murder conviction in the stabbing of Austin Metcalf at a Frisco high school track meet.

Collin County District Judge John Roach Jr. released more than six gigabytes of evidence, including surveillance footage, 911 calls, and photos of the murder weapon, autopsy and the defendant’s family.

Jurors deliberated for three hours on June 9 before convicting Anthony, 19, of Frisco, after a two-week trial. They rejected a lesser manslaughter charge and, after two more hours of deliberations, sentenced him to 35 years in prison, declining to find the killing resulted from “sudden passion.”

Anthony has consistently maintained that he acted in self-defense when he stabbed Metcalf, 17, after being told to leave and shoved inside a Memorial High School tent during a rainy track meet on April 2, 2025. Anthony attended Centennial High School, which did not have a tent at the meet when the rain began.

Grainy overhead surveillance footage from the track meet shows several people gathered under Memorial’s tent before Anthony, wearing a gray hoodie, emerges and runs down a set of bleachers. He appears to stumble over the bottom rows before getting up and running more than 45 yards to the end of the grandstand, then continuing toward a parking lot. Several people are seen following and pointing at him until he is approached by what appears to be a police officer.

The officer’s body-camera footage was also released. It shows him handcuffing Anthony while telling dispatch, “it’s the alleged suspect.”

“I know how it goes,” Anthony said. “I’m not alleged, I did it.”

As he is led back into the stadium, Anthony begins loudly weeping, “he put his hands on me, I told him not to put his hands on me.”

Images of the murder weapon were also released, showing a gray-handled utility knife with a 3.5-inch blade. The evidence release also included an uncensored close-up photograph of Metcalf’s two-inch chest wound.

Prosecution witnesses testified that Anthony cursed at, provoked and insulted students after being asked to leave the tent. A 16-year-old Memorial student said he heard Anthony call the students “a bunch of pussies” who were “not going to do nothing about it” when he refused to leave.

A Centennial student who testified for the defense acknowledged under cross-examination that he was mistaken when he initially said Anthony was surrounded before the stabbing. He testified Anthony was surrounded afterward.

Anthony’s attorneys have criticized the “noise” and “completely false information” surrounding the trial, which has drawn national attention and online misinformation involving a white victim and Black defendant.

There were no Black jurors on the 12-person jury, selected from a pool of over 500 people. During the three days of jury selection, Roach allowed prosecutors to strike the remaining three Black potential jurors. Despite a Batson challenge from Anthony’s attorneys, prosecutors successfully argued the three were struck for the race-neutral reason of being educators of school-aged children.

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