MCKINNEY, Texas (Court TV) — Attorneys for a teenager convicted of stabbing another student to death at a Texas track meet returned to court to fight for a new trial in front of a new judge one day after the trial judge was recused from the case.
Karmelo Anthony appears in court. (Sketch by Pat Lopez)
Karmelo Anthony, 19, was sentenced to 35 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalf. The two teenagers, who attended different high schools, got into a fight at a track meet in April 2025 that led to Metcalf’s death. Anthony never denied stabbing the victim, but claimed at trial that he acted in self-defense.
Anthony’s appeal for a new trial claimed that Judge John Roach, who presided over the trial, violated the defendant’s rights by closing the courtroom to cameras and limiting public access. The defense’s motion for a new trial accused Roach of having a “shadow docket” in the case because his gag order sealed all pretrial motions and hearing documentation from public view.
The defense motion also mentions an agreement in which both sides pledged they would “‘try the case clean — based only on what happened under the tent that day’ — with neither side offering any character, reputation or extraneous-conduct evidence concerning either the [victim] or the Defendant.” That agreement was never written out. While the defense said it planned to have Anthony testify, prosecutors signaled that their “agreement” would be voided if the defendant took the stand.
“I certainly wanted him to testify,” prosecutor Bill Wirskye said in court on Thursday, WFAA reported. “There’s nothing better in my business than a testifying defendant,” Wirskye argued, saying that there was no violation of the agreement, and both sides benefited from the evidence that was withheld from the jury.
That evidence, Wirskye said, included text messages in which Anthony was “fantasizing about stabbing someone and licking the blood off of the blade,” one courtroom watcher reported. Wirskye told the court on Thursday that Anthony had a documented obsession with knives and fighting, as well as a juvenile history of “not keeping his hands to himself” and a juvenile case involving racially charged graffiti, KDFW said. Another piece of evidence that wasn’t introduced at trial, Wirskye said, was evidence that Anthony’s ex-girlfriend told a vice principal at school that she was scared of the defendant.
Anthony’s defense said it had a dozen witnesses prepared to testify in support of its motion for a new trial. Among them was former Collin County public information officer Derrick Jackson, who claimed he was fired after allowing media to shoot video in an empty courtroom and answering logistics questions from a reporter, WFAA reported.
Retired Judge Michael Chitty oversaw the hearing and warned it could extend into Friday.
