ORISON, West Virginia — The Rill County Commission has postponed the sale of three tax-delinquent parcels after questions arose about the identity of a man who registered and bid during Friday's public session. The remaining 27 parcels were sold as scheduled. County counsel said no deed will be issued for the disputed properties until the registration record is reviewed.
The bidder signed in as Everett Noll and presented card 14, according to clerk Miriam Faye and five attendees interviewed by the Register. Noll formerly owned one of the parcels, a vacant repair shop on Weller Street, but county records and a published obituary show that he died in 2014. The property later passed to a nephew and entered delinquency this year.
Faye said the man appeared to be in his late 60s, wore a brown work jacket and supplied the street address shown on Noll's last recorded deed. She asked whether he was related to the former owner. He answered that the county had never finished returning the property, Faye recalled, and she understood the remark as a complaint about the tax process.
Auctioneer Cal Mercer accepted three bids from card 14. The man raised the card without speaking, Mercer said, and stopped bidding after reaching $18,600 on the Weller Street parcel. He also bid on two adjoining lots that had never belonged to Noll. Other attendees described him moving between the second-row aisle seat and the clerk's table during breaks.
The inconsistency was noticed when Faye entered the winning bids. The registration sheet carries Noll's name in handwriting that appears similar to his signature on older deeds. It does not list a telephone number, and the identification-copy box is blank. Faye said she remembers scanning a driver's license but cannot find the image in the county's intake folder.
The county records each sale from a wall-mounted camera to resolve bidding disputes. In the video reviewed by commissioners Monday, card 14 rests on an empty chair for most of the session. The card rises into the frame three times, but no hand or person is visible around it. Faye can be heard addressing Noll during a break and pausing as if listening. His replies are absent from the audio.
Mercer said the recording does not match his view of the room. He remembers asking the bidder to keep the card above shoulder height and receiving an apology. Two buyers seated nearby separately recalled the smell of machine oil on the man's jacket. One said she moved her purse so he could pass; the video shows her making space beside an empty aisle.
County counsel Mara Doss said memory and video can each be incomplete, particularly during a crowded sale. She would not characterize the registration as fraud without identifying who completed it. The county has notified the winning bidders on the three parcels and will return their deposits if the sale is canceled. No money was accepted from card 14.
Noll's nephew, Stephen Noll, said no relative attended under Everett's name. He recognized the handwriting on the registration sheet as his uncle's but noted that Everett wrote slowly after a hand injury. Stephen said the signature shown to him contains the same hesitation above the second 'l,' a detail he had seen on checks as a child.
Commissioners sealed the original sign-in sheet, bidding cards and camera file Monday morning. They will meet October 6 to decide whether to reopen bidding on the parcels. Doss asked anyone who photographed the room to preserve the original file rather than sending edited copies through social media.
After the materials were sealed, Faye found card 14 on her desk, though she had watched it enter the evidence envelope. The envelope remained closed and still contained another card bearing the same number. Both are printed on county stock. When placed together, each shows a pale rectangular area where the other card's number should be.