Murdered man gets gravestone

A transient murdered near Whitefish and buried in a pauper's grave in Demersville Cemetery near Kalispell received a proper tombstone last week.

Police believe Paul Wayne Matthews was murdered in 1995 by another transient, Robert Silveria, who was known as the "Boxcar Killer."

Matthews' son, James Owen, erected the tombstone on Saturday.

Matthews was 43 when he was killed. He left his family in Arkansas during the mid-1970s to live the hobo lifestyle and ride the country's rails. Owen, who has an older sister, was two months old at the time.

The grave marker was a filial act of respect for a man he never knew, Owen said.

"I can say that I did my part," said Owen, of Hope, Ark. "I did what he allowed me to do."

Owen and his wife, Arlie, began looking into his father's murder last September after deaths in the family led him to reconnect with his father's relatives.

Raised by his maternal grandparents, all Owen knew was that his father left, was killed by Silveria, and that he was buried in Demersville Cemetery.

"You wouldn't think your own flesh and blood could live that kind of a life," he said.

When the media approached Owen about his father's death, they knew more than he did, Owen said. He didn't even know his father was dead until a month after he was buried.

So part of the reason for coming to Kalispell was to look for answers, Owen said. There are large gaps in his father's life that even his family knows nothing about, he said.

Erecting the grave marker was his sister's idea, Owen said. And despite being a less than a role-model father, Matthews didn't deserve to be murdered, Arlie Owen said.

"We want people to know that Paul Wayne Matthews wasn't the greatest person in the world, but he didn't deserve to be killed, thrown in an unmarked grave and forgotten about," she said.

The grave marker also represents some semblance of closure to a story that probably will never be able to be fully told.

"It's just such a sad, sore subject, the family really doesn't want to talk about it," Arlie Owen said. "I don't think even they know why he left the way he left."

Matthews' body was found the evening of Oct. 15, 1995, near the railroad tracks on the west edge of Whitefish. He died from head injuries inflicted by a blunt object.

Silveria, his believed killer, was arrested in 1996 and linked to more than a dozen homicides committed over a 15-year period in seven states.

Silveria is now serving two life sentences in Oregon for the murders of William Avis Pettit of Salem, Ore., and Michael Andrew Clites, of Waldport, Ore.

Pettit's body was found in a boxcar on Dec. 3, 1995. Clites' body was found in a boxcar on Dec. 6, 1995.

Silveria pleaded guilty in 1997 to the two Oregon deaths in an agreement that allowed him to escape the death penalty.

A Kansas court gave Silveria another consecutive life sentence in 1998 for the murder of Charles Randall Boyd, of El Paso, Texas.

Boyd was found beaten to death in a Kansas state park in July 1995.

Silveria also was charged with murder in Florida, and authorities in Montana, Utah, Washington and Arizona investigated possible connections between Silveria and homicides in those states.

Silveria, who confessed to killing Matthews but later recanted, was never prosecuted in Flathead County.

Owen said he had no plans for regular visits to his father's grave.

"I'm not going to say I'm never coming back because I probably will some day," he said. "I'll want to show it to my daughter."

Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com