LiveNOW from FOX: Witnesses Detail Fatal Track Meet Stabbing as Karmelo Anthony Trial Begins

Outlet: LiveNOW from FOX | Appearance Type: Video Interview

Last reviewed June 5, 2026 by Mark Astor, Florida attorney.

AT A GLANCE

Mark Astor, a former prosecutor, told LiveNOW from FOX that the state’s case will lean on witness and forensic testimony, that the defense faces a steep climb proving self-defense given the facts as reported, and that the jury’s composition, with no Black jurors seated, is likely the strongest appellate issue in the entire case if there’s a conviction.

SETTING THE SCENE

On June 5, 2026, Mark Astor joined LiveNOW from FOX anchor Bowen Kedrowicz to break down day two of the Karmelo Anthony murder trial.

Opening statements had begun the day before in the case, which centers on the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a Frisco ISD track meet in April 2025.

Anthony, 19, faces a murder charge and is arguing self-defense. Astor, a former prosecutor, walked through what evidence would matter most, the significance of the jury’s composition, and what to expect as testimony continued.

THE BREAKDOWN

The state’s case is going to lean on people who were there. Astor expects eyewitnesses, students, teachers, the law enforcement officers who had contact with Anthony or found the knife, and probably testimony from the medical examiner’s office on cause of death. Surveillance video, if it holds up, rounds that out.

Self-defense is a real defense, but it has a burden. Astor said the defense will need to show Anthony’s use of force was reasonable given what he was facing.

The problem, as Astor sees it: Anthony allegedly walked into the victim’s space already carrying the knife and dared him to make contact. That opens the door for the prosecution to argue provocation. “He took a knife to a fist fight,” Astor said. “That’s not a fair fight.”

The tent itself matters more than it might seem. Astor described it as territory, essentially a locker room for each school’s team at the meet. When Metcalf’s side told Anthony to leave and he stayed, that’s where things escalated.

The surveillance footage is grainy, but Astor doesn’t think that will decide the case. The defense isn’t arguing mistaken identity. Nobody disputes that Anthony stabbed Metcalf. The only real question is whether the law excuses it, and grainy video doesn’t change that question either way.

Astor said the prosecution came out of the gate strong, and explained why the defense starts every case at a disadvantage: jurors tend to assume a defendant must have done something, even with the presumption of innocence sitting right there. He called it a real hurdle for the defense to overcome.

Then there’s the jury. No Black jurors were seated, after a selection process that struck several Black potential jurors, several reportedly excused for being teachers.

Astor didn’t hedge on this one. He said jury selection is “everything,” that it’s really elimination more than selection, and that he was stunned the prosecution let a pattern like that stand, especially in a case with a Black defendant and this much public attention.

He named jury composition, and later, jury instructions, as the two most likely grounds for a reversal on appeal, and called it a serious, avoidable mistake, one he thinks could hand the defense a “get out of jail free card” if there’s a conviction.

Reports have surfaced that some potential jurors expressed discomfort convicting a young Black defendant. Astor said that’s exactly the kind of thing prosecutors screen for in jury selection, along with race and age, whether someone will actually vote to convict if the state proves its case.

But he came back to the same point: striking jurors one after another until almost none of the panel reflects the defendant’s community is elimination, not selection, and it’s the defense’s strongest card if this ends in a conviction.

As for what’s coming: Astor expects the state to lead with its law enforcement witnesses to set the scene, establish the chain of custody on the knife, and back up the admissions attributed to Anthony in the police report. Crime scene photos and civilian witnesses would follow.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The following questions are drawn directly from Mark Astor’s analysis during this segment.

KEY LEGAL TERMS REFERENCES IN THIS SEGMENT

Self-Defense: A legal justification for the use of force when a person reasonably believes it’s necessary to protect against imminent harm. The core defense being argued in the Anthony case.

Provocation: When a person’s own actions instigate a confrontation, which can undermine a later claim of self-defense. Astor pointed to this as the prosecution’s likely counter-argument.

Presumption of Innocence: The constitutional principle that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Astor noted that jurors often struggle to apply it in practice, which puts the defense at a structural disadvantage.

Jury Selection (“Jury Elimination”): The process of questioning and striking potential jurors before trial. Astor described it as elimination rather than selection, since each side is mainly removing jurors it sees as unfavorable.

Chain of Custody: The documented, unbroken record of who handled a piece of physical evidence, like the knife in this case, from the scene to the courtroom. Needed to establish the evidence is what it’s claimed to be.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The state’s case rests heavily on eyewitness and forensic testimony, not the grainy surveillance video, since the defense doesn’t dispute that Anthony stabbed Metcalf.
• Astor says the defense’s central challenge is provocation: Anthony allegedly brought the knife and initiated contact, which cuts against a clean self-defense claim.
• No Black jurors were seated after a contested selection process, which Astor calls the single strongest likely ground for appeal if there’s a conviction.
• Astor expects the state to open its evidence phase with law enforcement testimony and the chain of custody on the knife.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

The following is a transcript of Mark Astor’s appearance on LiveNOW from FOX, June 5, 2026.

ANCHOR (Bowen Kedrowicz): 

Welcome back into LiveNOW from FOX, and we want to switch gears here and pivot to a case that has really grabbed the nation’s attention. Want to bring this post from FOX 4 News up on your screen here. This says, opening statements began Thursday in the murder trial of Frisco ISD student Karmelo Anthony after a jury with no Black members was finalized following a contested selection process. So we want to bring you here what we know of the latest with this trial, as it will be going on to day two today, as opening statements began yesterday morning in the murder trial of the Frisco ISD student accused of fatally stabbing another student at a track meet. Karmelo Anthony, now 19 years old, faces a murder charge in the death of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf. Police said Anthony and Metcalf got into an argument over seating in the stadium stands on April 2, 2025, which escalated when Anthony allegedly stabbed Metcalf in the chest with a pocket knife. The trial is expected to last approximately two weeks. If convicted, Anthony faces a maximum sentence of five to 99 years or life in prison. Now, to talk more about this and to break down the latest of the case, we want to bring in Mark Astor, a criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor, onto the program. Mark, thank you so much for joining us this morning. So we heard opening statements yesterday. Anthony faces a murder charge, and the defense is claiming self-defense. What evidence throughout this trial is going to be crucial? As we’ve already started to see some testimony yesterday from coaches, what evidence here is going to be crucial for the jury members?

MARK ASTOR: 

Well, obviously, first and foremost, I think this is the only defense that, you know, the defense has, of self-defense. If you read the police report, it’s right there in black and white. They’re claiming self-defense, so obviously the prosecutor is going to start bringing in eyewitnesses, people who saw this, people who saw the defendant flee from the scene. So we’ll have some of the other students, we might have some of the teachers. We’re certainly going to get the law enforcement officers who were on scene. The police report indicates that at least one of them had contact with the defendant, another one also found the alleged murder weapon. So those are the kinds of things that are going to be brought out, obviously. If there’s some surveillance video, that’s going to be coming in too. So that’s the state’s case. Civilians, law enforcement, any surveillance videos, and probably maybe even somebody from the medical examiner’s office to talk about the actual cause of death.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And for a self-defense case, what needs to happen to be able to prove that for self-defense, especially when it escalates to a point where somebody died?

MARK ASTOR: 

Well, I think from the defense perspective they’re going to have to establish that the force that was used was reasonable under the circumstances, and they’re going to have to say, look, our client faced potentially deadly force, or even something where he could be subjected to serious bodily injury, so he had no choice. He was outnumbered. The victim was larger than him. There were lots of people in the area, and he felt as if he had no choice but to use deadly force in order to protect himself. The problem with that is that the defendant actually, he went into the area where the victim was to be found. He allegedly had that knife with him when he went in. He dared the victim to touch him, to push him, and the argument is going to be, from the prosecutor side, that he provoked it. He went in there looking for a fight. He dared the victim to do this, and he did, and he was ready and prepared for this. He took a knife to a fist fight, that’s not a fair fight, and you can’t provoke a situation and then say, oh, not my fault, I was acting in self-defense. And that’s the dichotomy the jury is going to have to unpack in this case.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And then I also wanted to touch on the location of this as well, and where this happened, as we’ve heard from some testimony yesterday about what this revolves around, this tent there at this track meet. So we heard from Memorial High School coach Robert Starr, who took the stand, and he explained to jurors that a tent at a track competition typically, quote, marks your spot, he said. It’s similar to a team bench for sports. So what this case involves is escalating from a seat dispute that we’re getting from a FOX 4 report. How could testimony from coaches and other athletes really affect this case? And when it comes to something like where this happened, especially when they’re saying this tent kind of, in some way, marks a territory.

MARK ASTOR: 

Yeah, I mean, you gotta remember we have two high schools that are potential rivals, and you’ve got the defendant going into the victim’s space. That tent area is, it’s almost like a little bit of a house, right? This is our home, you don’t come into our home, and if you do, we have a right to protect that space. And according to the police report, the victim in the case said, ‘Hey, you shouldn’t be here, you need to leave. This is our space, go to yours.’ And that’s when this incident started to escalate, because the defendant didn’t want to leave.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And now jurors were also shown grainy surveillance video of what happened. It’s from a camera across the field. It says software allows the shots to be zoomed in, but it becomes grainy. So the video shows a person who the state said is Anthony entering the tent from behind, and also, a few minutes later, there are quick movements. Prosecutors said that was Metcalf pushing Anthony, trying to get him out of the tent. A few seconds later, Anthony exits the tent. This is according to FOX 4 Dallas reporting. So when we talk about the surveillance video, how crucial is that going to be, and especially when they’re talking about grainy surveillance video, how can the jurors take that in, especially if the video is grainy and it could maybe be hard to identify certain people there?

MARK ASTOR: 

Yeah, so look, obviously a picture tells a thousand words, but at the end of the day, the defense isn’t arguing you got the wrong person. So does the video really matter that much? Are they going to say, ‘Well, this isn’t our guy, you can’t tell us that this is our client, look at the grainy quality of the video’? I don’t think they’ll make that argument, because it doesn’t make sense. Either he acted in self-defense, which means they’re not denying that he stabbed the victim, or they’re going to say, ‘You got the wrong guy, you arrested the wrong person.’ That’s not their defense, so I don’t think the quality of the video is really going to make that big of a difference, to be quite honest with you. It helps the prosecution, but is it really the case that we’re arguing about? I mean, no one’s denying that this happened, it’s just, are we going to legally excuse it with the self-defense defense.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And our legal experts have been commenting in with FOX 4, our affiliate over in Dallas, saying the prosecution had a strong start yesterday. When looking at criminal cases like this, is that typical for a prosecution to really come out swinging at first, and then the defense really plays their part later on in the trial? How does the structure really work when it comes to criminal cases here like this?

MARK ASTOR: 

Yeah, so part of the jury selection process is going to be this, especially from the defense perspective, to make sure that we exclude any jurors who don’t believe in the presumption of innocence. But when you’ve got a client who’s sitting there, the jurors are saying to themselves, hold on a second, he must have done something, otherwise he wouldn’t have been arrested, we wouldn’t be here. So as a defense lawyer, you’re already behind the eight ball, even with the constitutional presumption of innocence. And so as a defense lawyer, you kind of have to overcome that. So that’s a problem for the defense. And honestly, I think the prosecution has a great case here, they really do.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And then I wanted to talk about that jury selection, as well, as there’s been some controversy about that, as well as there being no Black jury members on this trial. So can you explain to me the controversy behind that, and how important jury selection is to a case, can it really define its outcome here?

MARK ASTOR: 

Yeah, jury selection is everything. If you can get the right jurors for your side, who are hopefully going to see the case your way, as a prosecutor you’re golden. But don’t forget, you need 12 people on that jury who are going to find that you met your burden of proof. As the defense, I only need one person to say, hold on a second, this was a self-defense case, and my client potentially gets an acquittal. So that’s the dichotomy in the jury selection. Now, the jury is supposed to reflect the community, it’s supposed to be a jury of the defendant’s peers, and I think from the defense perspective they potentially have a get out of jail free card here. As a former prosecutor, I cannot believe the prosecution actually made this mistake, to exclude all of the African American jurors, knowing you had an African American defendant, knowing that you had a bunch of people outside the courthouse who feel their community, the African American community, is not going to get a fair trial. I think that’s a big mistake. You’ve got to remember, as a prosecutor, you’re not there just to convict; your job is to make sure that the defendant gets a fair trial. And I honestly think if there’s a conviction here, the appellate court is going to take a very hard look at this and potentially reverse it. This is a serious mistake by the prosecution, and jury selection is one of the ways that an appellate court will reverse a conviction. So we’ll have to see how this plays out, but if I was the prosecutor, I would never have done this. It’s a mistake, and I think this is going to come back and haunt them.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And now you actually took the next question right from me. If we could see an appeal from this, because he, maybe he doesn’t feel that he is represented by his peers.

MARK ASTOR: 

Yeah, I mean, how can he? He’s an African American young man in an African American community, and he has no African American jurors to decide his fate. How can that possibly be fair? Now, to the prosecution’s point, I’m sure when the judge said, ‘Why are you striking this person?’ I think what they said was, ‘We don’t want any teachers on the panel.’ And when you do that once, okay, sounds okay. When you do it twice, maybe, but you start doing it three times and four times, you’re like, hold on a second, there’s a pattern here. And it’s the pattern of striking those African American jurors that I think is going to come back and bite the prosecution, in the proverbial backside, I really do, and I think the appellate court is going to find a problem with this.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And there was, I’m reading some of these other articles when it comes to this jury selection and how this was done throughout this case as well. This is according to TMZ, saying one potential juror reportedly said, ‘I don’t think I can make a decision about somebody so young. One mistake, one argument, one conflict, you can’t say he’s a bad person.’ Another prospective juror raised eyebrows after admitting, quote, ‘I don’t know if I feel right putting a brother in jail,’ end quote, when asked about finding a Black defendant guilty of murder. This is coming from a report from TMZ. So what are the challenges here when it does come to the prosecution, when it does come to what are those questions that they’re asking potential jurors, and making sure that it is a jury selected that the defendant does feel represented by their peers?

MARK ASTOR: 

Well, I think from the prosecution’s perspective, they’re going to ask those questions. How do you feel about the fact that this young man is African American? How do you feel about the fact he’s so young and potentially has his whole life in front of him? If we prove our case, are you going to be able to vote to convict him? So that’s part of the prosecution’s responsibility. But you got to remember, when it comes to jury selection, it’s not really jury selection, it’s jury elimination. We’re not picking jurors, we’re just getting rid of the ones that we think aren’t going to vote for us. And so that’s what’s happening. They’re just striking these jurors one after the other, and whoever’s left, that’s your jury. So they’re really trying to nitpick with these potential jurors, from a state perspective, are they going to vote for us, are they going to help us win the case. And obviously from the defense perspective, they’re going to say, hold on a second, how can you possibly say that you can be fair if nobody on the panel reflects the skin color of our client, or even the community, for that matter. So there’s a real problem here.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And then I do want to bring in this post here, coming from the New York Post, that says, jury selection in Karmelo Anthony murder case delivers major blow to defense as trial begins. So we’re reading here that the New York Post says it’s a major blow to the defense, but just like what we were saying in our conversation, this could actually work against the prosecution.

MARK ASTOR: 

Yeah, I think it’s a get out of jail free card. And look, it wasn’t that long ago that we were electing and reelecting an African American president, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that this jury could vote to acquit this defendant. But if they don’t, I think the appellate court’s going to say there’s a problem here. There’s two areas that are very susceptible to reversal: one is jury selection, and the other one is the jury instructions. Obviously we haven’t gotten to the jury instructions just yet, we will at the end of the case. But right out of the gate, I think the prosecution has made a fundamental error by not protecting the record and making sure that this young man got a fair jury and a jury of his peers. This is a mistake by the prosecution. I’m frankly shocked that an experienced prosecutor would do this, but here we are, so we’ll have to see how this plays out.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And then I wanted to bring in this next one here from the New York Post, saying, coach of Karmelo Anthony’s trial, teen victim’s coach sobs as he recalls chaos after fatal track meet stabbing. Also, yesterday we heard the 911 call as well. What are you going to be on the lookout for here, what can we expect to hear later on today, as trial is set to begin here in just a few hours from now?

MARK ASTOR: 

Yeah, I’m sure the prosecutor is going to start bringing in their witnesses. Typically, when I was prosecuting cases, I would bring in my law enforcement officers first, let them set the scene. We want to establish what they saw when they first came on scene. We want the officer who came into contact with the defendant to talk about what he saw and what he heard, because according to the police report, there were some admissions made by this defendant. He talked about, he admitted the fact that, you know, this is a self-defense case, and that might actually help the defense, in that they may not need to put their client on to testify because their defense is in the police report. So they’ll bring in their officers, they’ll testify about what they saw, what the defendant allegedly said. Obviously we want to establish a chain of custody with the knife, and they’re going to want to bring that in and show the jury, because I know when I prosecuted a case where there was a knife attack, the one piece of evidence that was really important to my case was the knife, and when the jury saw that knife, they said, okay, we get it, this is a murder case, and it really brings that in. So they’ll bring in the knife. There will probably be a ton of crime scene photographs, because jurors can use their imagination, but again, a photograph is worth a thousand words, and once you start laying out all those photographs, the blood scene, the chaos that was going on, they’re going to bring all of that in, and then they’ll bring in their civilian witnesses to talk about what they saw, what they witnessed, really to corroborate what law enforcement has already established. So that’s what I expect to happen over the next couple of days.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

And we’ll make sure to stay on top of it. Mark Astor, thank you so much for coming on today, and for helping break down all the latest here for us.

MARK ASTOR: 

Thanks for having me.

BOWNE KEDROWICZ:  

Thank you. Take care.

ABOUT MARK ASTOR

Mark Astor spent the early part of his career as an Assistant State Attorney in Palm Beach County, Florida, where he prosecuted thousands of criminal cases and served as Chief of two County Court Divisions.

He brings that background into his role as a legal analyst, which is why producers at FOX News, LiveNOW from FOX, and local CBS and ABC affiliates call him when a complex criminal case needs a clear explanation.

His law practice is a different matter. Mark Astor and Astor Simovitch Law focus exclusively on behavioral health law: helping Florida families navigate Marchman Act petitions, Baker Act proceedings, and the legal intervention process when a loved one is in a mental health or addiction crisis and refuses help.

If that’s the situation you’re in, schedule a free confidential consultation or call us at 561-419-6095.

A NOTE ON MARK ASTOR’S MEDIA COMMENTARY

Mark Astor’s appearances as a legal analyst cover a wide range of legal cases in the news. This commentary draws on his background as a former prosecutor and his 30-plus years of courtroom experience.

It does not represent the services offered by Astor Simovitch Law, which does not handle criminal defense matters. For criminal defense needs, please consult an attorney who practices in that area.