MASON COUNTY, WV (WOWK) – A jury has convicted a man of voluntary manslaughter and concealing a body in Mason County, West Virginia.

The jury returned the verdict against Anthony Ray Yester this afternoon, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. A sentencing date for Yester has not yet been set.

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.