Proportional Force

A rainy high school track meet. A crowded tent. One shove that turns into one stab and a teenager sentenced to 35 years. We step into the gray area most headlines skip and ask the uncomfortable question: what does “proportional force” really mean when fear and adrenaline hit faster than thought? We walk through the Texas case involving Karmelo Anthony and Austin Metcalfe, then weigh the arguments that split the public, from self defense claims to the idea of intentional escalation, and why jury composition and community context can shape how justice feels.

Jennifer Lares

• Website: Mullingmortician.com
• Tel: +1 352-509-6273
• Email: Mullingmortician@gmail.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-lares-a09163302

Our guest, Dr. Jennifer Lares, brings a rare perspective as a licensed funeral director and embalmer, a former Navy hospital corpsman in mortuary affairs, an educator, and the founder of Mulling Mortician LLC. She shares what she found when she dug into the case, including the role of rivalry, how narratives harden through social media, and why nuance gets lost once a story becomes national debate about race, justice, and “what should have happened.” Tanya adds a policy lens around weapons on school property and the questions people ask when the physical evidence is as stark as a fatal chest wound.

If you care about true crime analysis, self defense law, the death care industry, mortuary science careers, and building a legacy with your work, this conversation will stay with you.

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Transcript

Show Opening And Theme

Voiceover 0:03

Tales from the Wild. Stories from the Heart. A journey into the mind and soul of FIDE business professionals where they share their vision for the future. And hear from a different nonprofit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Stop Delayed Invoices Draining Cash

Shireen Botha 0:35

Alright, welcome back. Shireen here. I am your virtual Boutique bookkeeper and QuickBooks Pro advisor. You did the work weeks ago. Your customer is happy. So why hasn't your business been paid yet? Because you're buried under daily operations. Delayed invoicing is draining your cash flow and stalling your growth. Stop letting administrative quicksand hurt your bottom line. At Shireen's Bookkeeping Services, we take the invoicing burden completely off your plate. We set up automated systems to bill your clients immediately, track overdue accounts, and keep your cash flowing smoothly while you focus on what you do best. So please start chasing money you've already earned. Email Shireen's Bookkeeping Services today for your free cash flow consultation or just visit us at shireensbookkeeping.com and let's get you paid on time every time. And allow me to keep your books clean so you don't have to.

Welcome Tanya And Listener Support

Shireen Botha 1:44

Welcome back. You are listening to Friends from Wild Places with myself, Shireen, and my most beautiful co-host Tanya. Tanya, how are you? Hello, Shireen.

Tanya Scotece 1:56

Greetings to I know it's true, it's true, it's true. So greetings from Miami. Uh, super excited to be here today. Um, my friends from wild places, you can share your journey, tell your story. We do have a paid wall for as little as five dollars a month. You can subscribe and get all the raw, unedited content. And if you have a topic that you would like Shireen for and I to dig deeper on, or maybe even have you on a podcast, feel free to reach out. So the paid wall is five dollars a month or more. We do have some subscribers that um just like to contribute to our mission. So if that's one of our listeners out there, feel free to support us. And things are great here in Miami, Shireen. Um, just uh, you know, just three three hats that I wear. So just uh multitasking to the best of them. So uh turning it back over to you.

Shireen Botha 2:52

Thank you. I just feel like we our lives get so busy and we carry on and we completely pass each other by, and then when we do these recordings, we like touch bass and go, how you doing? Get a response of I'm good, how are you? I'm good, let's go. So um, this is you know, myself and Tanya are close, and uh for me it's I'm so sorry that life gets so busy that we don't touch bass as much as I would like us to. So um I should try and touch bass with with you more, uh, just on the on the sidelines on the outside of our busy lives. But anyway, yes, so please uh go and and just subscribe. It's only five dollars, it really just helps us do what we love and enjoy, which is this for you guys, and we do extra content, so please go ahead.

Meet Funeral Educator Jennifer Lares

Shireen Botha 3:45

But more importantly, um let's introduce our guest for this month, um, Jennifer Lares. Dr. Jennifer Lares has been a licensed funeral director and embalmer in Florida since 1998 and holds an active dual license in Texas and Colorado, but a history of being licensed in multiple states. She served in the US Navy as an active duty hospital corpsman specializing in mortuary affairs. And then Jennifer did begin teaching after graduating and has been an instructor with Northeast Texas Community College Funeral Service Education. Uh, Jennifer served as a mortuary officer as the US Army Regional Mortuary. Uh, she specialized in returning fallen service members and other eligible persons to their homes. She's recently completed and joined the Kate's Bolson publications team and is the editor of Funeral Service Insiders. So we want to know more about that. But in May 2024, Jennifer founded her company, Malin Mortician LLC. Mulline Mortician is her passion project, a creation committed to providing applicable training options that funeral service professionals can access virtually or on site. Uh, she is uh she has her own YouTube channel and has appeared in American Funeral Director magazine in October 2024. She is a continuing education provider in Florida. Um, and in addition to that, she has published funeral industry research and presents at various funeral service professional events all over the world. So, welcome, Jennifer. We're so happy to have you on the show with us. Good morning.

Jennifer Lares 5:44

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yes, of course.

Tanya Scotece 5:48

We are super excited, super excited. Have another sharia now. We always laugh because I always uh try to get our funeral professionals. Uh so Jen, I'm just super excited that you'll be able to share your story, and um, I'm always excited to learn more. Um, I know when we we've talked and zoomed in the past, but today we really get to dive deep on uh who Jen uh Lades is. And are we pronouncing your last name correctly? Yes, it's Lares. Lades, Lates. Okay, great, great, great. Yeah, so once like Millows, um, this might be an easier an easier word than great. Great, great. We're super excited for your podcast.

Shireen Botha 6:26

Thank you. Yeah, we we absolutely are.

Tanya Scotece 6:28

Thank you.

Shireen Botha 6:29

Um, in the beginning, the journey of just understanding the mortuary world was very um rare to our uh our listeners. You know, it's it's not common, it's not spoken about very often, but here on Friends and Wild Places, we've covered it, and uh our listeners know a lot more and are way more educated than they were um at the beginning. I am, I'm talking by myself, I am way more educated in this department, uh, thanks to Tanya and all of the guests that we've had on the show. But um, the another thing about Tanya and I is we are true crime enthusiasts, and you know it, listeners, we enjoy just sharing some of the latest crimes that have been going on in the world, and we've got one for you, let me tell you.

The Frisco Track Meet Case

Shireen Botha 7:17

Um, but you know, uh moving on to it, this case specifically is also very heartbreaking uh for me. Um, you know, just because I think we've come we're 2026 and we've come so far as a as a globe um and the human race, and we seem to keep on falling in the same ruts. So, in this case of 19-year-old Carmelo Anthony in Texas, uh just a quick backdrop for you listeners. This stems from an incident in April 2025 at a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas. It started raining, and Anthony, who didn't have a team tent, took shelter under a rival's school tent. A 17-year-old athlete and who was named Austin Metcalfe told him to leave. Witnesses testified that words were exchanged, and Metcalfe physically shoved or grabbed Anthony to remove him. In a split-second reaction, Anthony pulled a pocket knife from his bag and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest, fatally piercing his heart. The defense argued intense fear and self-defense. The prosecution argued it was a completely unprovoked intentional escalation to a minor physical shove. Uh, just days ago, you know, a Texas jury rejected the self-defense claim, found Anthony guilty of first-degree murder, and sentenced sentenced him in to 35 years in prison. Because Anthony is black and Metcalf was white, and the final jury had no black members, the case has sparked an intense nationwide debate about race, justice, and proportional escalation. So let me get to the question, right? So the prosecutor in this specific case, ladies, closed with a statement that really stuck with me. So he told the jury, you don't get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove. But on the flip side, Anthony's defense argued he was a smaller teenager reactively responding to being swarmed and grabbed in a chaotic moment. Looking at this purely from a human standpoint, ladies, in a split second, hydrenaline confrontation. Where's the line between an instinctive survival response and criminal ex-escalation? How do we expect a teenager of that age to logically calculate proportional force where fear takes over? That's a good question. I I would love to hear hear some of your your answers to that, ladies. Should we start uh should we start with our guest today, Jennifer? What what what have you got to say?

Instinct Versus Escalation Under Pressure

Jennifer Lares 10:09

So I I did some digging into the case after um we had kind of spoken about it. And when you when you look at the dynamic of team rivalry, and then you look at the fact that he was seeking shelter from the rain, he didn't go in there with the intention of harming anyone, right? He was just trying to get dry. And I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a situation where it was only Metcalf like interacting with him or put and he put his hands on him first. So I would imagine it would be potentially scary for Anthony in that setting. And from what I read, he told him to stop touching him. He he pretty much had verbalized that that was a problem. And the only reason they were trying to kick him out from under the tent, from what I could find, was because it was a rivalry, right? Which is stupid. And then the whole knife um situation, right? People are like, oh, he brought a knife in there and nobody else had it. It was a multi-purpose tool that you get from Walmart for less than $20. So he did not go in there brandishing a machete, he did not go in there with you know a w a weapon, an identified weapon, and he had to get it out of his bag. So he he obviously didn't have it like in his pocket ready to go. Um, but I also looked at the stats for Frisco, the demographic stats, and half of the population within that area is Caucasian, and there's only about less than 10% in that area that are African-American. It's actually um a largely Asian population in that area. But we see it even with professional teams now, like the pushing, the shoving, like these exhibits of um brutishness and within professional sports or other things. And I think here in America that stuff's becoming more acceptable. It's becoming more acceptable to be ugly and things like that. And then you combine that with the court of public opinion because there was so much social media and interactions about it, um, that by the time it got to the jury, which took less than what maybe three hours to come to their decision, there had already been so much said about it. So I feel bad for Anthony. Um, I live in Texas, so I have I have thoughts and opinions about the average mentality of Texas, but I'll just kind of keep those to myself. Um, but yeah, I think I think that it sounds like he was already kind of set up for failure from the get-go.

Shireen Botha 12:29

Yeah, yeah. You you touched all the points, Jennifer. Thank you very much um for sharing. No, really, yes, like it's thank you for covering that. Sanya, what about you? What do you think?

Knife Policy And Jury Questions

Tanya Scotece 12:42

Yeah, no, true, true. I like um I like I appreciate Jennifer to have gone into the demographics and you know that aspect of the research. So I I followed it quite closely, and I understand in Texas it's not um illegal to carry a knife of whatever magnitude for like to use, right? That's it's not, however, it was on school property, and my understanding, I dug deep into the policies of the schools. It is against school policy to have a knife. So that brings it's like, why was the knife, and I and I actually I looked it up, and um, I mean, it was you know, you're talking, it was quite you know, a blade. So my question is, and Jen, you and I can probably um collaborate a little on this, is the fatal stab wound to his heart, right? That's an extreme amount of pressure to actually with one, you know, one, and and I don't know what I was trying to find is if he was right or left-handed. Because if he's right-handed, which most of the population is, let's just go with that one. That is a direct stab to him, to his um, you know, opposite, it was on the opposite side. If he was left-handed, I could almost argue, well, then that's you know, like maybe just the path like of least resistance. I'm left-handed. So I actually took that um aspect of it. So again, I heard, you know, everyone, or not everyone, many people arguing the fact that, you know, it's not illegal to bring a knife, but this is on school property. I believe it was 10 a.m. in the morning at a at a you know, a meet or a game. So I don't know, like there are some other factors. Now, what I found interesting, and based on what you just shared, Jed, about the statistics, is that the jury was all white. And I follow many, many cases nationally for our students at the college, um, as far as you know, relating it to death care industry. Um, I had not been privy or I have not been aware to say, are there factors as far as you know, jurors, for example, like if you have a you know a plaintiff or a defendant that is opposite race, are there any statutes by state statute to say, well, we should have so much representation? So, what Jen, you shared about the 10% being, let's say, African-American, should that be reflective in a jury? Like, is that should that be another factor to say, why is it an all-white jury if it's not? But I don't have enough expertise to speak on that. So I just think, you know, again, at the end of the day, you have somebody that died, um, he admitted doing it, and I and again, he it was in self-defense. So when I had researched the case on another angle, I was surprised that they didn't put in four. I think it was the word passion, crime of passion, meaning anger or emotion. And I believe had it been prosecuted in that manner, yes, you still have a fatal stab wound, yes, you still have a death. Now, in addition to what I researched, I did not see any defense wounds at all on the quote-unquote victim, meaning that I didn't see him, it was so this stab wound again. I just question, you know, and from a bodily injury standpoint, one stab to me was was quite intense. So I just think again, had it been prosecuted under the passion crime, I think he would have gotten um less as far as what you know. But I believe they'll probably do an appeal, and um, but I am curious going forward about the race as far as the jury selection on both sides, you know. For so that's my two cents on it. But how about you, Shereen? What's your what's your stance?

Shireen Botha 16:45

Right, so you know, we have to move on very quickly um from this now. But I uh you both touched on it just with the knife. There uh when I was that age, there was no knife, no knives, no, no weapons were brought to school. It just it's a it's never as I things have changed now. Um I am 40, you know, was in school a good over 20 years or more um ago, and that was never in the back of my mind to bring any sort of a knife, even if it's a pocket knife, even if it's a a pocket knife that I used for campaign. It just was never on the back of my mind to bring anything in my school bag of that kind of um of thing. So the fact that he had the knife in the bag, um yeah, that should never have been there, it should never have been an option. Um but I and the fact that it's it's unfortunate one stab and it hits straight in the heart. I mean, his that aim must have been something else as well. So I agree with what you're saying, Tanya and Jennifer, what you were saying. We've touched all the corners on

The Shade Tree Quote On Legacy

Shireen Botha 18:05

that. Um and with that being said, I want to move on to the quote of the day. Uh yeah, I want to move on to the quote of the day. Uh Jennifer shared this with us, and I think it's amazing. Um, her quote that you mentioned is one has to come to the full meaning of life when he is willing to plant shade trees under which he knows full well he'll never sit. Let me say that again. One has to come to the full meaning of life when he is willing to plant shade trees under which he knows full well he'll never sit. This is Alton True Blood. Jennifer, why don't you take some time just to let us know what that specific quote means to you?

Jennifer Lares 18:49

I think that sometimes um, you know, we have our experience in life and our time here, and I know some people are planning on what comes next as a part of how they choose to live. Um, my belief system is you're here and it's kind of cyclical. But uh, you know, I also think that if you can be motivated to do and not necessarily see the result and benefit from it personally, if you can leave something for someone else, then that can be more meaningful than your epitaph on your headstone. Um, and especially I think about that a lot within the education sector and within death care because of shifts in the need to mentor and cultivate people. And I think if more people like recognize that you're gonna put work in over here and you may or may not see an outcome, but that shouldn't your ability to see it shouldn't necessarily dictate your commitment. And I think that that is one of those things where I try to think about that, and I've talked, you know, when I'm talking to students, I'm training my replacement, and I'll tell them that I'm like, I need you to stay because you're my replacement, and then they look surprised. But if everybody in and really in any professor in any position within life, if you would look at it as what can I do that would have made my journey um a little easier or better, or you know, that that I can then turn to for someone else. Um, I think that overall the world could be a smidgey smidge of a better place if you looked at things like that. I love the quote. I love the quote, Jen. Awesome. Well, you know, I I would I just wrote a piece on Amy Stevens, and um she was the first transgender person, she was a film director in embalmer, but she helped push for transgender individuals to be protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And she pushed that case, and it stemmed from her getting fired from her funeral home, and she died a month before the Supreme Court ruled in her favor and added transgender category to that law. And as I was writing about her, that that quote came to my mind because of the impact she had that she didn't live to get to see excuse me, she didn't get to see in life. And it's like if everyone could invest just a little energy into those types of activities or just how you you know, how you show up, I think that could be really meaningful.

Shireen Botha 21:17

Yeah, yeah. True words, true words, Jennifer. Um, I really love that. I think that's a really good quote. Uh we haven't had one of those that that has hit home in quite a while. So I I really like that. So thank you for that. Um more on you, Jennifer.

Leaving Job Security To Build Malin

Shireen Botha 21:35

I'd love to just take some time um and just chat about the fact that you know you've done a lot of different things. As listeners, you heard in my introduction a lot from being a US Navy hospital corpsman to working in funeral homes. And now running your own business. What was the hardest part about letting go of a Job and deciding to build your own thing from scratch.

Jennifer Lares 22:04

Well, there's a security and a stability to your regular job, right? You know you're gonna show up, you're gonna get paid, you're not gonna have the peaks and valleys necessarily that you do with a private business. And so when I started my business, I was actually still in Germany and I knew I was coming back to the States, and I didn't know what I was gonna be doing over here at the time I was adjunct teaching. Um, but I felt like this was really something I wanted to do. I felt like the time was right in terms of my development, but I didn't have like you know a money pile to to help fund this initial effort. I didn't I didn't know how well it was gonna work out. I had kind of low expectations because it is a niche, a niche area, but um I I I was like I'm gonna work on this, and if I if I have you know a full-time job later to help supplement it, whatever, but like I put a lot of energy into it. And um, but the most the most um scary thing about that is you have to really have faith in yourself. Like you are putting all your chips on yourself, and whether it's your discipline, your knowledge, your willingness to recognize your own weakness and get support in those areas. Um, it it takes a lot to see your own shortcomings when you're trying to do something, and it and to be willing to ask for help from other people where that is their strength. So I think that that part um can be could be quite scary.

Tanya Scotece 23:33

Yeah. I have a couple questions, Jen, just on what you just shared. So um, as you know, I oversee the program uh for funeral service education at Miami Dade College, and so we have you know a wide range of students coming into the program. Um, I always like to share our fact from uh last year's graduation, which is the youngest being 18 and the eldest being uh 72. So wide range of students. So, where did you see yourself? For example, like can you can you just share with our listeners and us how did you get into the actual mortuary and did you always seek out education? Because it sounds like, especially with your new position with Kate Spoilston, so congratulations on that. But how did you tie that in and like where did you see yourself, you know, if at all, in the beginning? So if you can share that journey

Entering Funeral Service At Sixteen

Tanya Scotece 24:26

a little bit.

Jennifer Lares 24:26

So in the beginning, I walked into a funeral home when I was 16 and I interviewed the owner because I did not have I don't have any family that that works within funeral service. I knew nothing about it. Um, what I did know, I learned from I don't know if you all remember like the guidance counselors would have the career guides, the printed books of all the different occupations, right? And I remember flipping to the page and it had this older uh gentleman wearing like the white undershirt with an apron, and he was supposed to be an embalmer. And I'm like, what? So I was like, what is and then as I read the description, I mean he caught my eye only because of the bizarress of the photo. But I I read the description, I was like, this sounds fascinating. And so I interviewed the funeral homeowner, um, and I got to understand a bit about how every day is different, how you know the tasks are very mixed. You may be working in the front, coordinating a service and doing formal things, you may be caring for the body in the back, whatever it was. And I was like, man, this sounds like something of interest to me. And then I badgered him to hire me because he did not need a 16-year-old child to work in the funeral home at the time. But I would call him every week until finally he was like, fine, like just come work here, so you'll leave me alone, more or less. And so I was vacuuming and doing all this stuff. But as far as like big picture thinking, I don't think I really had any beyond initially beyond just working in the field. And it wasn't until I had been in the in licensed and practicing, um, I had been licensed almost 10 years when kind of a door presented itself, and that's where I saw the recruiting ad from the Navy. And I saw that, I don't know if you all remember, there was a website called Funeral Net, I think back in the day, and you could do free job postings for your location, and you could also see other opportunities, and I happened to see it, and I was like, the Navy has morticians, right? And the two things that stuck out to me were the opportunity to go back to school. I had an associate, but I was always hungry to keep learning, um, and I felt limited. And then the other thing was travel, like to be able to get to see different places, and then once I did that, I feel like um it showed me a lot of things as far as what you're capable of doing in this kind of work and how you can kind of design a life that's more than just being kind of pigeonholed in a little building for a gajillion hours a day, and that's kind of what got me started, and that's why I've moved around so many times and taken on different roles, is because I I like to try the different hats on that we have access to, and so that's kind of I didn't see myself running around and doing becoming an instructor and all of that. I didn't foresee that, but um, here we are.

Tanya Scotece 27:11

Wow, so let me just I want to paraphrase back just so I'm following the story because it's fascinating. So you had this like maybe peaked interest at the age of 16, and kind of as you described, badgered the funeral homeowner to hire you, and so so my understanding is that it's a first career for you as funeral directorslash embalmer, and then it was 10 years later that you saw out something. So for 10 years on your initial entry into funeral service, you were working at a funeral home, like regular, like serving families, embalming like the main gists of a traditional job as a funeral director, embalmer, correct?

Jennifer Lares 27:49

When I could finally find a job out of school because I graduated Mortoy College in 1997, and home is Florida to me. And in Florida, you serve an internship following school, and I remember being one of the only women in the class. I went to Gupton Jones, which was you know on-site program as they all were back then. And I remember just looking around the room at all the men, and then I remembered coming home. I came home in February, and I did not I wasn't able to secure an internship job until I think August maybe. And I was pounding pavement, and it was so um disheartening to have interviews and have people look at you and and question how much you can lift and ask you how old you are when they're not really legally allowed to during an interview. So it was hard to kind of break in there from from that point and find the right place with the right people who were willing to invest in helping me learn. Because I think people think you get out of mortuary school and you're like a Barbie doll, you just pull it out of the box, you're good to go. So that part of the struggle is very real, and it's still a struggle for, and I know you know this for our students today. But during the time leading up to the Navy, I worked for corporate funeral homes, private funeral homes, um, moved within the state of Florida a bit because they had me commuting for a firm in Orlando, and I lived like an hour and change away because it was a corporate firm and they needed coverage and things like that. So when I found the Navy spot, I was actually working, it was a corporately owned funeral home, but the family was still there, kind of running it. So that's kind of where I was. So at that point, I had you know spent some time in the different environments and and whatnot before I came across the military opportunity.

Part Two Tease And Closing

Tanya Scotece 29:37

Tune in next week for part two from Friends from Wild Places.

Voiceover 29:42

You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places with Shireen Botha. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.