Paul Wesley Matheny, 41, was found dead on October 28, 2021, in the bed of a pickup truck with Ohio plates in the 6000 block of Gill Ridge Road in Mason County. A utility worker discovered the body and law enforcement from the Mason County Sheriff’s Office and West Virginia State Police opened a homicide investigation. An autopsy determined Matheny died of a gunshot wound to the skull.

Witnesses later described a disturbance at the home of 47-year-old Anthony Ray Yester in Letart: one witness said they heard glass breaking and an argument at the front door, then saw Yester’s girlfriend shouting at a man before Yester allegedly pulled a gun and fired multiple times. A second witness who arrived to deliver marijuana reported hearing screams, seeing a man back out of the house, and observing muzzle flashes as a man standing beside a woman fired several shots; the man backing away then collapsed. Yester was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, and a grand jury later indicted him on murder and concealment of a deceased human body in May 2022.

Matheny worked as a heavy equipment operator and belonged to IUOE Local 132; he enjoyed squirrel hunting and trout fishing and is survived by a daughter and two brothers. Does anyone have information about Matheny’s movements in the days before October 28, 2021, or about the pickup truck where his body was found?