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DALLAS (AP) — Opening statements were set for Thursday in the murder trial of a former Texas high school athlete accused of taking out a knife during a track meet and fatally stabbing a 17-year-old competitor from a rival team in the stadium’s bleachers.

The killing last year stunned an affluent Dallas suburb where the teenagers attended school and quickly drew wider attention, in part over social media posts that amplified the case in racial terms.

Karmelo Anthony, now 19, faces up to life in prison if convicted in the killing of Austin Metcalf. According to an arrest report, Anthony told police he was protecting himself when the teenagers got into a confrontation during a high school track meet in Frisco, a booming city in Dallas’ sprawling north suburbs.

A jury was seated this week under increased security at a Collin County courthouse and a judge has set strict rules over the proceedings, including prohibiting attorneys from discussing the case publicly.

“We know this case has struck a deep nerve — here in Collin County and beyond,” Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis said while announcing the indictment against Anthony last year.

The stabbing happened on a rainy morning in April 2025. Witnesses told police the confrontation began when Anthony sat under a tent belonging to Metcalf’s team, according to an arrest report. The teens went to different high schools in Frisco.

When Metcalf told Anthony that he needed to move, Anthony reached inside his bag and allegedly replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” the report said.

A short time later, Metcalf allegedly grabbed Anthony, who then pulled out a knife and stabbed the other teenager in the chest, the report said.

A police officer said in the report that Anthony told him that Metcalf had put his hands on him, and that he was protecting himself.

Mike Howard, Anthony’s attorney, said following the indictment last summer that he expects prosecutors would “not be able to rule out the reasonable doubt” that his client may have acted in self-defense once the full details of the confrontation come out.

The parents of both teens have said they were good students who planned to go to college.

Metcalf’s father has condemned those who have seized on the race of the teenagers after the killing. Anthony is Black; Austin Metcalf was white.

“This was not a race thing. This is not a political thing. Please do not comment if you do not know what happened,” Metcalf’s father, Jeff Metcalf, said on Fox News’ “America Reports.”

“This is a human being thing,” he said. “This person made a bad choice and it affected both his family and my family forever.”

Authorities have also issued warnings about online discussions surrounding the killing. Frisco Police Chief David Shilson has urged people to beware of posts spreading “misinformation, hate, fear, and division.”’

UPDATE: Additional child-sex charges have been filed against Doyle Hodge II, a church volunteer of Polk County who was arrested after allegations of ongoing sexual abuse surfaced last week.

Hodge has now been charged with criminal solicitation of a minor and continuous sexual abuse of a child, according to the sheriff’s office. A warrant is being issued for indecency with a child by sexual conduct and his bond has totaled $325,000.

POLK COUNTY, Texas (KETK) — After receiving multiple allegations of ongoing sexual abuse, Polk County officials have arrested a volunteer of several local churches last week.
Mugshot of Doyle Hodge II, courtesy of Polk County Sheriff’s Office

According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, they received reports on May 27 from adults and minors that 40-year-old Doyle Hodge II was sexually abusing them. After opening an investigation, deputies identified five possible victims, with additional individuals continuing to come forward.

Detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Hodge to ensure the safety and well-being of the children involved. On Friday, he was taken into the Polk County Jail for sexual assault of a child and is being held on a $100,000 bond.

The investigation remains active, and additional charges are expected to be filed.

According to the sheriff’s office, Hodge was a volunteer at several of the local churches. Anyone with any additional information regarding the case or who believes they may be a victim is encouraged to contact investigator Kayla Hemperly at 936-327-6810.

EAST TEXAS (KETK)– Gov. Greg Abbott announced an energy grant on Wednesday that will strengthen electric reliability in Northeast Texas.

The funds from the grant will go toward a project to upgrade 700 miles of power equipment and are expected to impact more than 192,000 Texas consumers. Upgrades will include replacing aging copper wire with stronger aluminum and replacing existing utility poles.

“Reliable electricity powers every part of Texans’ daily lives,” Abbott said. “As our state grows, we will ensure families, businesses and communities have the reliable, affordable power they need. Through these investments to upgrade power line infrastructure, Texas will remain the energy capital of the world.”

The project is expected to be completed by early 2031.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A museum in Georgia’s oldest city on Wednesday welcomed a truckload of treasures from the earliest period of U.S. history — 17 cannons that experts believe sank to the bottom of the Savannah River during the American Revolution and remained undiscovered for nearly 240 years.

Workers carefully hoisted the big guns one-by-one from the back of a truck and wheeled them inside their new home at the Savannah History Museum, which will put them on display just in time for the Fourth of July celebration of America’s 250th birthday.

“They look brand new,” said Andrea Farmer, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers archaeologist who was part of the team that researched and preserved the cannons. “They could pretty much be fired if someone wanted to.”

The artifacts were discovered in 2021 when a dredge scooping sediment from the riverbed as part of an Army Corps project to deepen Savannah’s shipping channel pulled up a cannon in its metal jaws. The crew soon dug up two more.

In the course of just over a year, a total of 19 cannons were hoisted from the location just downstream from Savannah, which is where Georgia was founded in 1733 as the last of Britain’s 13 American colonies.

After being pulled from the river, most of the cannons left Georgia for several years to undergo cleaning and preservation work at a Texas lab.

Archaeologists initially assumed the cannons likely dated to the Civil War. But further research indicated they’re likely almost a century older and sank during the buildup to the American Revolution’s bloody siege of Savannah.

Savannah was under British occupation in the fall of 1779, when colonists planned an attack to retake the city with help from French allies.

When French ships carrying troops were spotted off the Georgia coast, British forces scuttled at least six ships in the Savannah River downstream from the city to block the French vessels.

The land battle that followed was one of the bloodiest of the war. British forces killed nearly 300 colonial fighters and their allies, and wounded hundreds more.

The Savannah History Museum sits right next to the battlefield. Its staff on Wednesday hoisted the cannons, weighing up to 1500 pounds (680 kilograms) apiece, onto custom display mounts that staffers likened to giant wine racks.

The cannons will be part of a new exhibit on Savannah’s role in the American Revolution, which is scheduled to open Fourth of July weekend, said Samantha Moss, the museum’s curator.

“Our great team has been prepping for months — building mounts and planning how we can safely display these very large, very special artifacts,” she said.
Cleaning the crusty cannons took years

Each of the iron cannons emerged from the river covered by a thick crust of mud and minerals.

Two were left in that raw state and put on display at the museum. The other 17 were sent to Texas A&M University, which has a lab that specializes in preserving underwater artifacts. Its staff spent years painstakingly cleaning the big guns and coating them in paint and wax to prevent rusting and corrosion.

“A lot of them have scour marks on the side from anchors or dredging, so there’s some scarring on the cannons,” said Chris Dostal, a professor of nautical archaeology who leads Texas A&M’s Conservation Research Lab. “But most of them look pretty exceptional.”

Most of the cannons arrived with wooden plugs still sealing their bores, which remained packed with cannonballs and gunpowder charges.

Dostal said radiocarbon dating of the wooden stoppers placed them roughly in the late 1700s. His team shared the cannons’ measurements and other details with experts in London, who concluded three of them were very likely forged by the British military.

The rest appeared to be of French design but bore no telltale markings. Dostal said he suspects those guns may have been cast in America around the time of the war.

Other artifacts found with the cannons included pieces of anchors and a portion of a ship’s bronze bell. Like the cannons, none of them bore engravings indicating which ship they came from.

That means many details of the cannons’ origins remain a mystery.

“You don’t have all of the information,” Farmer said. “You’re trying to piece it together as best as you can.”