Search Preston County Inmate Records

Preston County Jail Roster Search

Preston County does not run a standalone county jail in Kingwood. The main custody record for a person held after a Preston County arrest is the WV Regional Jail Offender Search. That portal is the public jail roster for regional jail custody and is the first online stop for Tygart Valley Regional Jail and Correctional Facility. The Preston County Sheriff's Department may have an arrest or incident report, but WVDCR operates the jail record system for people held in regional jail custody.

The roster should be read as custody-location data, not as the final court record. WVDCR warns that the information is public, updated regularly, and can change quickly. It also says the jail search may not reflect the true current location, release date, status, or other offender information. If a record mentions sentencing, that does not replace the formal court file. Use the court with jurisdiction for the underlying criminal action.

The matching screenshot from the official WV Regional Jail search form shows the name fields, captcha, search button, and disclaimer that govern Preston County jail records.

That form is intentionally name based. It does not show a Preston County-only roster, a facility dropdown, a booking-number search, or a date-of-birth search in the public form captured during research.

Preston County Roster Fields

The regional jail search uses only a small set of public fields before the captcha. A broad last-name search may return too many matches, so add a first name when possible. If the person's name has changed, contains a suffix, or may be spelled more than one way, search the first three letters of the last name first and then narrow the result.

Daily admissions use a different WVDCR page. The WV Daily Incarcerations page has a county dropdown that includes Preston and an admissions-by-institution table. During research, the page showed a statewide daily table and Tygart Valley listed admissions for that inspection date, but the county-filtered Preston result was captcha gated.

Use the Preston County Roster

A precise roster search works best when the search is treated as a custody check rather than a complete background file. Start with the official WVDCR jail search. Then compare the result to the Daily Incarcerations page, call the facility for urgent custody questions, and use court records for the filed charge. A release, transfer, bond change, or detainer can make a jail result stale.

1. Open the WV Regional Jail Offender Search and enter at least the first three letters of the last name.
2. Add the first name if the last name is common, hyphenated, or likely to produce many results.
3. Complete the captcha and submit the search.
4. Review the result as current jail-custody information, then confirm Tygart Valley custody by phone if timing matters.
5. Use Magistrate Court or Circuit Court records for the formal case, charge status, disposition, and court dates.

For new arrests, the Daily Incarcerations page can help when a name search has not yet produced a clear match. For older cases, the person may have been released, transferred to state prison, moved to federal custody, or never booked into Tygart Valley because a bond or citation handled the matter before jail admission.

Preston County Inmate Record Fields

A full WV Regional Jail sample profile could not be inspected during research because the public search is captcha protected. The safe field inventory below separates confirmed public form behavior from fields that may appear only after a successful search. Treat any jail record as a lead to the custodian. It is not a guarantee that a person is still in the same location at the moment it is viewed.

The same distinction matters for booking photos. The Preston County jail mugshots page explains why West Virginia booking-photo access should be described with care when the public profile cannot be fully inspected.

Tygart Valley Jail Contact

Tygart Valley Regional Jail and Correctional Facility is the WVDCR regional jail serving Preston County and nearby counties. It is not operated by the Preston County Sheriff's Department. The official WVDCR page says the facility holds pretrial felons and misdemeanants plus sentenced felons and misdemeanants in regional jail custody. The FY2025 annual report lists a rated population of 368, and the facility page identifies Bryan Lanham as superintendent.

The official Tygart Valley facility page provides the contact block, directions, counties served, and visitation information for the jail that serves Preston County.

That WVDCR page is the better source for visitor scheduling and jail-specific questions than the Preston County sheriff address in Kingwood.

Preston County Custody Channels

Preston County inmate records are split across custodians. The right search depends on whether the person is in regional jail custody, state prison, federal prison, immigration custody, court processing, or only connected to a sheriff report. The chain below keeps those systems separate.

A statewide West Virginia Sheriff Connect app exists on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Store snippets mention sheriff communications, news, jail information, and crime-prevention content. Research did not confirm a Preston-specific app-only roster, warrant search, or most-wanted tool, so the app should be treated as a communication channel unless a feature is verified in the app.

Preston County Inmate Lookup Limits

The most common search error is using one custody system for every person. Tygart Valley is a regional jail. It can hold people waiting for court, people serving jail sentences, and certain inmates awaiting transfer. WVDCR prison search is different. BOP search is different again, even though USP Hazelton and FCI Hazelton are physically in Preston County.

Preston County Booking Process

After a Preston County arrest, the arresting agency may be the sheriff, a municipal police department, West Virginia State Police, or another law-enforcement agency. If the person remains in jail custody, the booking path usually moves into the regional jail system. That means the booking record may be connected to Tygart Valley, even when the arrest happened in Kingwood or elsewhere in Preston County.

The normal custody flow is arrest, transport, intake identification, property inventory, booking photograph and fingerprints when required, medical or mental-health screening, classification, WVDCR system entry, housing assignment, and first appearance or magistrate review if needed. WVDCR has not published a Preston-specific rule for how fast a new booking appears online. Use careful wording: the search is updated regularly, but it can lag a new arrest or release.

Court records begin on a separate path. A complaint, citation, warrant, information, indictment, amended charge, dismissal, plea, or conviction should be checked through the court system. For the post-arrest case path, use Preston County court records after jail arrest rather than relying on a roster charge label.

Preston County Jail Visitation

Tygart Valley visitation is scheduled through WVDCR rules rather than through the sheriff's office. The official facility page says visits are non-contact, limited to 30 minutes, and scheduled by an inmate-submitted TVRJ Form 5-0029 between 8 a.m. Monday and noon Thursday of the week before the requested visit. Each inmate is allotted one visit per month, subject to classification and security limits.

Each visit is limited to one adult and two minor children or two adults. A visit that exceeds 30 minutes needs prior approval 24 hours in advance from the superintendent or chief correctional officer. Holiday schedules can change, so call Tygart Valley before traveling.

Preston County Jail Mail

The public Tygart Valley facility page links a resource guide, but the visible page did not publish exact mail format, commissary vendor, phone-account vendor, money-deposit limits, or property-release rules. Do not assume a private vendor for Preston County inmate funds unless the current WVDCR resource guide or facility staff confirms it. Use Tygart Valley's phone line for money, mail, phone, and property questions.