How we investigated

This section documents exactly how the information on this site was captured, so both neighbors and counsel can see it is grounded in official public records and can be independently reproduced.

The approach, step by step

1. Full recording-index sweep (free). We searched the Island County Auditor’s EagleWeb recorder portal month-by-month and captured the entire recording index for Jan 2025 – Aug 2026 — 23,561 instruments (grantor, grantee, type, date, document number). Parsed counts matched the County’s own reported totals for every month.
2. Pattern isolation. We flagged the fraud “fingerprint”: quitclaim deeds where the grantor equals the grantee (someone conveying to themselves), and the County’s “INVALID DEED” index annotations. This surfaced the three deeds directly.
3. Document capture & OCR. We downloaded the actual recorded images (PDFs) and read them with Azure AI Document Intelligence so the legal descriptions and claimed patents could be searched and confirmed. We also OCR’d all 40 other self-to-self quitclaims in the window to confirm no other land-patent frauds exist — the three are the complete set.
4. Searchable index. We loaded the records into an Azure AI Search index (“island-county-deed”) so the corpus can be searched by content and geography, not just by the County’s name index — the technique that lets a mis-tied or mis-named deed still be found.
5. Identity & notary verification. We confirmed the filers’ addresses against King County Assessor property records, and verified the notary against the Washington Department of Licensing registry.
6. Business-entity & principals search. We searched the Washington Secretary of State Corporations & Charities Filing System (CCFS), which revealed Gold Dust Title Company, LLC (UBI 605 800 985) — governor Douglas Shroyer, a Langley principal office, and Ballard Law Group as registered agent — and we archived the company’s public website (golddusttitle.com) and the attorney’s public firm bio (ballardlawgroup.com). A public WA Dept. of Health credential lookup corroborated the identity of “Steven Shroyer.”
7. Ownership detail (Assessor Property Access). We used Island County’s public Property Access to pull parcel, legal-description, and deed-chain detail for affected owners (e.g., the Kundert property at 4896 Lucy Ln), confirming clean chains of title.
8. Chain of custody. Every captured file is inventoried and SHA-256 hashed. See the chain of custody and the design write-up SELF_INDEX_design_and_analysis.

Sources (all official / public)

• Island County Auditor — EagleWeb recorder: the recording index and the actual deed images.
• Island County Assessor: ownership, mailing addresses, and legal descriptions.
• Island County GIS + OpenStreetMap: parcel geometry and road georeferencing for the maps.
• King County Assessor: verification of the filers’ Seattle property ownership.
• Washington Secretary of State (CCFS): business-entity records (Gold Dust Title Company, LLC; registered agent).
• Washington Department of Licensing: notary commission verification.
• Washington Department of Health: public professional-credential lookup (identity corroboration).
• Washington Courts: background case search.
• Company & firm websites (golddusttitle.com, ballardlawgroup.com): the subjects’ own public statements, archived with hashes.

Technology & cost transparency

Processing used Microsoft Azure AI Search (a dedicated, isolated index named island-county-deed, kept separate from any other data) and Azure AI Document Intelligence for OCR. Total added OCR cost was approximately $0.22 (about 148 pages), because the free index search located the fraud without needing to OCR the whole county. See the scope / OCR decision memo.

For security, no cloud subscription identifiers, resource identifiers, credentials, or keys are published anywhere in this site or its data files.