Jury reaches verdict in Texas track meet stabbing case
What's new: Jurors could weigh murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter after the judge rejected criminally negligent homicide.
A jury reached a verdict Tuesday in the murder trial of Karmelo Anthony, the Texas teenager charged in the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a 2025 high school track meet in Frisco. Anthony has admitted stabbing Metcalf but argued he acted in self-defense. Before deliberations, Judge John Roach let jurors consider manslaughter as a lesser offense but declined a defense request to add criminally negligent homicide. Prosecutors had rested after calling 21 witnesses, while defense lawyers pressed a claim that Anthony faced a sudden threat during a dispute inside a Memorial High School team tent. A murder conviction in Texas can bring five to 99 years or life in prison; manslaughter carries two to 20 years.