“Stay With Me, Austin” — The Karmelo Anthony Murder Trial Opens With Chilling Testimony Nobody Was Prepared to Hear

The courtroom was silent when prosecutors played the 911 call. A coach’s voice, cracking under the weight of desperation, repeating the same words over and over to a teenager who could no longer respond.

“Stay with me, Austin. Stay with me, Austin.”

Austin Metcalf, 17, did not stay. And now the young man prosecutors say held the knife that ended his life is sitting in a Collin County courtroom, fighting for his own future as a first-degree murder trial gets underway in McKinney, Texas.

Two Stories. One Dead Teenager.

The trial of Karmelo Anthony, now 19, opened this week with competing narratives so fundamentally opposed that the jury of twelve will eventually have to decide not just what happened — but who to believe.

Prosecutors say Anthony provoked the confrontation at Kuykendall Stadium during a rainy high school track meet on April 2, 2025 — goading Austin Metcalf with the words “Touch me and see what happens” before pulling a folding knife from his bag and driving it into Metcalf’s chest.

“This was not self-defense,” prosecutor Bill Wirskye told jurors. “This was a sneak, surprise attack. He didn’t want a fight. This was simply senseless.”

The defense tells a different story entirely. Attorney Mike Howard argued that Metcalf — who was several inches taller and at least 70 pounds heavier than Anthony — made the first physical contact, and that Anthony reacted in what Howard described as “a split second of fear and chaos.”

“Self-defense is useless if you wait too late,” Howard told the jury.

The Final Moments

After being stabbed, Metcalf lifted his shirt, saw the wound and shouted “I’ve been stabbed” before collapsing down a set of bleacher stairs. His twin brother Hunter rushed to his side. Emergency responders arrived.

The most devastating testimony came from Joshua Redmond — a track coach and 14-year combat veteran who served three tours in Iraq and has been blown up three times in service to his country. Redmond applied pressure to the wound and began chest compressions. At some point, Metcalf stopped breathing.

“I’ve heard last breaths before,” Redmond testified, his voice breaking. “I knew those weren’t the normal breaths of someone struggling. I knew those were the last moments.”

When another coach excitedly announced on the phone with 911 that Metcalf was breathing again, Redmond said nothing.

He already knew.

The Knife. The Video. The Jury.

Prosecutors showed surveillance footage from five camera angles — but the quality was so poor that a forensic analyst had to enhance it frame by frame. What it appears to show is Anthony waiting under the opposing school’s tent before the confrontation, the knife already open when it was used.

The jury itself has become a flashpoint. Anthony is Black. Metcalf was white. The final jury of twelve contains zero Black members — after three African-American women were struck from the pool by prosecutors, prompting a Batson challenge from the defense that was ultimately denied.

More than 200 people lined up outside the courthouse for just 27 public seats.

The trial is expected to last approximately two weeks. Anthony faces up to life in prison if convicted.

Austin Metcalf was a football captain who loved chess and camping. He was 17 years old. His twin brother was there when he fell.

Source: Compiled from various sources