Karmelo Anthony’s defense team rested their case Monday without their client taking the stand. He’s accused of murdering Austin Metcalf.
By Jane Harper, Jamie Landers,Staff Writers
McKINNEY – Karmelo Anthony, the teen whose lawyers insist he was defending himself when he fatally stabbed a fellow student-athlete at a high school track meet last year, chose not to testify during his murder trial. Anthony’s attorneys rested Monday afternoon without calling their client to the witness stand, leaving jurors to decide whether he reasonably feared for his safety without hearing directly from him.
Anthony’s attorneys rested Monday afternoon without calling their client to the witness stand, leaving jurors to decide whether he reasonably feared for his safety without hearing directly from him.
Anthony is charged with murder in the April 2, 2025 death of Austin Metcalf. Both were 17 at the time and were set to compete that day for different Frisco high schools.
The case has drawn national attention from the start and generated a flood of misinformation and racist vitriol on social media. Anthony is Black. Metcalf was white.
People accused of crimes often choose not to testify at trial, but that decision is less common in self-defense cases because they hinge on the defendant’s mindset, said Sam Bassett, an Austin defense attorney who has tried such cases.
“It’s pretty rare that a self-defense case would go forward without that testimony, but it does happen,” Bassett said. “It may have been a calculation as to how they thought [Anthony] would be able to withstand cross-examination.”
In order to successfully argue self-defense in Texas, a defendant must reasonably believe the force they used was necessary to protect them from serious bodily injury or death. Without the defendant testifying, it’s hard to demonstrate that to the jury, Bassett said. But, the defense lawyer said, the burden of proof remains with the prosecution, and never shifts to the defense, even in self-defense cases.
“If the jury believes there is reasonable doubt as to whether (the force) was justified, then they have to find him not guilty,” Bassett said. “The state has to disprove the self-defense claim beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Defense lawyers Mike Howard and Toby Shook announced they would not call any more witnesses after a lunch break that extended, without explanation, for more than three hours Monday afternoon.
The defense called half a dozen people in all, among them Anthony’s track coach and student-athletes who were at the meet and had different recollections than the prosecution’s witnesses.
But the bigger picture of what happened that day was never in dispute: Anthony, shooed away multiple times from a rival team’s tent, stabbed Metcalf with a pocketknife.
Prosecutors started making their case Thursday after three days of jury selection.
In his opening statements to the jury, Assistant District Attorney Bill Wirskye argued Anthony provoked the confrontation with Metcalf and was the aggressor, which is not allowed in self-defense cases. The defense argued he made a split-second decision in the face of a threat from a teenager much larger than him — an act they say amounted to self-defense.
Through their cross-examinations of the prosecution’s student witnesses, and by calling some of their own, the defense pointed to multiple discrepancies in the student accounts, especially in the moments leading up to the stabbing.
In addition to a grainy security video that showed the scene unfold, prosecutors called multiple coaches, athletes, and first responders who witnessed the stabbing or its aftermath. Their final witness, a medical examiner, told jurors the knife entered Metcalf’s heart, creating a wound that was impossible to survive.
And on cross-examination Monday, one student called by the defense acknowledged to prosecutors that the video from security cameras contradicted his recollections.
“Have you learned a few extra things about how your brain can play tricks on you?” Wirskye asked. “Yes, sir,” the student responded.
State District Judge John Roach Jr. told jurors he would allow them to deliberate as long as they want once the case is turned over to them. If they decide to call it a day Tuesday without reaching a verdict, they will be sequestered in a hotel, without their phones, until they return to the courthouse.
“We’re getting close, I’m telling ya,” Roach told the panel before dismissing them for the day.
Anthony, now 19, could spend up to life in prison if convicted.
Closing arguments are set to begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Senior Staff Writer
Jane Harper is a Senior Staff Writer for the Dallas Morning News.
Senior Breaking News Reporter
Jamie Landers is the senior breaking news reporter at The Dallas Morning News, where she covers crime, courts and capital punishment. She is a graduate of The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, where she studied journalism and political science. Jamie previously reported for The Arizona Republic and Arizona PBS.
