HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- A man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for dismembering his girlfriend with a chain saw and dumping her body parts in bags and boxes behind a Target store in Alabama. William Lewis Paton was convicted of corpse abuse after charges of murder were dropped for lack of evidence.

Payton denies killing or dismembering 27-year-old Tonya Lynn Amerson, the mother of two of his eight children.

According to a report in AL.com/The Birmingham News, the cause of her death in 2015 couldn't be determined. "We still don't know exactly what happened to Tonya," Madison County Prosecutor Joshua Ballinger said.

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Ballinger said at Monday's sentencing that 44-year-old Paton's actions showed "a level of depravity you see in a horror movie."

Payton's mother called him "a good kid." He still faces trial on abuse and sodomy charges involving a child younger than 12.

