A Suzuki motorcycle leans against a wall on the second floor of the former Wood County Sheriff’s office building at Second and Avery streets Thursday. Because the vehicle was evidence in a 1984 murder case, it cannot be disposed of, Prosecutor Pat Lefebure said. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG — Among the collection of court documents, property transfers, outdated equipment and old road signs stored on the second floor of the former Wood County Sheriff’s office, a decades-old Suzuki motorcycle leans against a wall.

As county officials consider how to dispose of items in the building, which is expected to be torn down before the end of the year, they’ll have to find a new place to park it.

The vehicle was confiscated as evidence in a 1984 murder case, Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure said. And just as the state’s rules of record retention require documents in such cases to be maintained, the evidence must be preserved as well.

“Anything to do with a capital case, we have to keep our records,” Lefebure said.

Most such records are paper documents, which can be disposed of once they’ve been preserved digitally, Lefebure said. But the motorcycle will just have to go into storage, he said.

Boxes of paper records are seen on the second floor of the former Wood County Sheriff’s office building in downtown Parkersburg Thursday. If the records are related to capital cases, they must be preserved, either physically or digitally. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

Asked if there were any other pieces of evidence that size the county is still hanging onto, Lefebure said, “nothing like that.”

Lefebure joined Wood County Commission President Blair Couch, county Administrator Marty Seufer and Maintenance Supervisor Todd Nonamaker Thursday morning to walk through the building and get an idea of what could be destroyed, what could be sold at auction and what needs to be maintained.

“It’s kind of been the catch-all for the county,” Seufer said. “Once we get the records that we have to get out of there, the only thing left is stuff we (can) auction off.”

Seufer said he would like to see the building emptied out within a month, allowing the county to move forward with seeking bids for asbestos abatement and demolition. The plan is to pave the site, which Seufer hopes can be accomplished before asphalt plants close in the fall.

“That would get us ample parking for the Resiliency Center,” he said, referring to the multimillion-dollar facility the county built with federal funds to address issues that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic and host meetings and conferences that couldn’t be held at other local facilities.

From left, Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure, Maintenance Supervisor Todd Nonamaker and Administrator Marty Seufer look at property record books stored on the second floor of the old county sheriff’s office building Thursday. Seufer said they hope to demolish the building and pave the area for additional Resiliency Center parking this year. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.