It only took three hours for a Texas jury to reach a verdict in the murder trial of 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony in a case that garnered national attention.
Anthony, who is black, was charged with first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of fellow high school student Austin Metcalf, who is white, during a Frisco track meet in April 2025. Both students were 17 at the time of the incident.
On Tuesday, the jury found Anthony guilty of first-degree murder, but not before his defense team successfully argued that jury instructions should include criminally negligent homicide as a lesser charge to consider. The prosecution objected, but Collin County Judge John Roach overruled and allowed the jury to deliberate between murder and manslaughter.
After the verdict was read, the sentencing phase of the trial began. Anthony faces a potential sentence of between five and 99 years in prison. Because he was a minor when he committed the crime, he will be eligible for parole regardless of the sentence the jury hands down.
Megyn’s Take
Megyn went live to cover the highly anticipated verdict as it happened. “A Collin County jury has found Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder in the death of Austin Metcalf,” she reported. “I mean, there was no other reasonable choice.”
But before the verdict was read, Megyn explained why she believed this case was “as open and shut as they come.” Below are her remarks, edited for length and clarity:
“You never know what a jury is going to do. It is sort of a fool’s errand to go and try to predict verdicts, but, whatever, I’ll do it anyway. There is just no chance in my mind that they are not going to find him guilty. I could be wrong. Juries sometimes do surprising things, but I will be shocked – shocked – if this is anything other than guilty on the murder count.
They added a manslaughter charge today, and that could change things considerably for the better for Karmelo Anthony because it would be much better for him to be found guilty of that than of murder. But there is no evidence of manslaughter in this case; there is only evidence of murder.
The manslaughter charge, if that’s what they consider and find him guilty on, I think, would just be either a compromise verdict because they had disagreement on the jury, or they just felt sorry for Karmelo Anthony because he was a 17 year old who, reportedly, had not been in trouble with the law prior to this and didn’t want to put a 17 year old in jail for murder. It would have to be that.
But I’m sorry, that is what he committed. This was premeditated murder. He went into that tent on the Frisco grounds for this high school track meet. He meandered into the wrong tent intentionally. He knew he was not supposed to be there… He was told by multiple kids who were in the tent to get out… And he wouldn’t…
Why would he go into a rival team’s tent with a knife in his bag? I’m sorry, but it looks very much like this kid had some dastardly deed on his mind. It could have been Austin Metcalf, it could have been [Austin’s twin brother] Hunter Metcalf, it could have been anybody, but he set himself up for this entire event.
And he never testified. We didn’t even get to hear from him. They didn’t do the jury the courtesy of having him explain his self-defense defense. Of course, the defendant has a Fifth Amendment right not to testify, but, when you are alleging you’re not guilty because it was self-defense, it is extremely rare not to put the defendant on the stand.
It is not like they had some amazing eyewitness who was right next to him and could testify that Austin attacked him, or punched him in the face, or had him by the neck, therefore, vitiating the need for Karmelo Anthony to actually give testimony. That didn’t happen.
The defense witnesses, by all accounts, were weak. They didn’t really see much, didn’t have eyes on the tent, or came in too late to really be of much help. So, it is a very interesting question why they didn’t put him on the stand. Obviously, they did not believe he would make a good witness, and one wonders why. What was it that they saw on the defense team that led them to that conclusion?”
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