MASON COUNTY, WV (WOWK)—A man convicted of voluntary manslaughter and concealing a body in Mason County has been sentenced.

According to the Mason County Prosecutor’s Office, Anthony Ray Yester will serve 15 years for voluntary manslaughter plus five more years under the recidivist statute for being a repeat offender. He will serve 1-5 years for the concealment of a deceased human body. These sentences will run consecutively for a total of 21-25 years.

Yester was also sentenced to five years for being a felon in possession of a firearm, but that sentence will run concurrently with the 21-25 years from the other convictions.

A jury returned the guilty verdict against Yester on Friday, Nov. 18, 2022.

Yester was charged in the death of 41-year-old Paul Wesley Matheny, of Leon, whose body was found in the back of a pick-up truck in a secluded area of Gill Ridge Road Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021.

Deputies say that a crew of tree services workers first saw the pickup truck parked under a power tower when they arrived at the scene early that morning. They told deputies that at the time, they assumed the truck belonged to a hunter in the woods. The truck was still there as the crew was ending their workday and they noticed “a burn trail” beside the vehicle. One of the men went over to the truck where he saw the body in the truck bed and called 911.