MCKINNEY, Texas (AP) — A Texas teenager who fatally stabbed a 17-year-old track athlete from a rival team during a high school meet was convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison on Tuesday in a case that drew wide attention beyond the booming Dallas suburb where they were students. A jury rejected Karmelo Anthony's claims of self-defense during a confrontation with Austin Metcalf in stadium bleachers last year. Most people who testified were students who described a heated exchange over Anthony's refusal on a rainy spring day to leave a tent that belonged to Metcalf's team.
Anthony, now 19, did not testify at trial and only his mother took the stand during the sentencing phase, telling jurors her son was sorry.
Notoriety about the case spread, in part, because of a flood of social media posts that amplified the killing in racial terms. Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white. Lawyers on both sides, however, told jurors that the tragedy had nothing to do with race.
Jeff Metcalf, Austin's father, had also denounced those who sought to stoke racial divisions after his son was killed. A year later, he said again in a Collin County courtroom that it was never about race while his voice swelled with anger over the death of his son.
"You failed your parents, you failed yourself and you failed society," said Metcalf, looking at Anthony after the teenager was sentenced.