Man admits stealing coworker's identity 35 years ago, taking on $130K debt in his name, causing victim to serve time

A wild tale of stolen identity came to light last year after a DNA test proved a man had been secretly living under the name of an old coworker he'd met 35 years earlier.

The saga begins in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1988. There, Matthew David Keirans, a young man in his early 20s who had run away from his adoptive parents when he was a teenager, met William Donald Woods, a young man from Kentucky, when they started working together at an area hot dog stand.

The length of time they worked together and the extent of their relationship are unclear, but somehow Keirans got ahold of Woods' Social Security number and later that same year, stopped using his true name altogether and began living as Woods. He later acquired documents, such as driver's licenses and a Social Security card with Woods' actual Social Security number, in Woods' name. At one point, he even managed to receive an official copy of Woods' birth certificate from Kentucky after doing a search into Woods' family history through Ancestry.com.

In 1994, Keirans, using the name Woods, married a woman. The couple eventually had a child, whose last name apparently remains Woods to this day.

As the years passed, Keirans secured a well-paying position in the IT department of University of Iowa Hospital, and the nature of his job allowed Keirans to work remotely from his home in eastern Wisconsin. From 2013 until 2023, he earned more than $700,000 from that position and was making more than $140,000 annually at his peak.

With a solid income and a seemingly normal Midwestern life, Keirans had opened multiple credit cards and bank accounts and taken out several loans to make major purchases, including at least three Jeep vehicles. By 2022, he had more than $200,000 in loans from various credit unions in Iowa and more than $100,000 in loans from a national bank.

Meanwhile, the real William Woods was down on his luck. He was living on the streets of Los Angeles when he learned in 2019 that $130,000 in loans had been taken out in his name. He then ventured into a local branch, claiming he did not want to pay off the fraudulent loans and asking to close his accounts. He even furnished bank staff with an authentic Social Security card and California state ID, which matched the information listed on bank records.

However, Woods of course could not answer the security questions on the accounts since they had been opened by Keirans. So, the bank contacted LAPD. When detectives reached out, Keirans faxed over documents that seemed to prove he was Woods — except for one problem. His Wisconsin driver's license listed his middle name as David — his real middle name — while Woods' middle name is Donald. But Keirans managed to convince the detective that he sometimes used the middle name David.

In October 2019, Woods was arrested and charged with two felonies related to identity theft. Court documents in that case alleged that Woods' real name was a misspelled version of Matthew Keirans, though Woods never wavered about his true identity.

By February 2020, after Woods had been languishing in jail for four months, a judge ruled that Woods was not mentally fit to stand trial. That October, Woods was taken to a mental hospital, where they administered psychotropic medications to him.

On March 17, 2021, Woods pled no contest to the two felonies and was sentenced to time served. In all, he had spent 428 days in jail and 147 days in the psychiatric facility.

Upon his release, the judge ordered Woods to use his supposedly real name, Keirans, from then on. Woods did not obey. He immediately began contacting credit agencies and law enforcement, trying desperately to prove he's the man he has always said he was: William Donald Woods.

Through his investigations, Woods learned that Keirans was working for the Iowa hospital and contacted a member of the security team there to plead his case. The security official turned the complaint over to a local detective, who treated Woods' accusations seriously. He even managed to locate Woods' father in Kentucky and persuaded the elderly man to provide a DNA sample.

DNA tests later proved definitively that Woods is the old man's biological child and that Keirans is a lying fraud. But before tipping his hand, the detective had a bit of fun with Keirans first. In an interview last July, he asked Keirans to give his father's first name. Rather than respond with the name of the man in Kentucky, Keirans accidentally slipped and gave the name of his real adoptive father.

When the detective confronted Keirans with the DNA evidence, Keirans knew the jig was up. "My life is over," he admitted, according to court documents. "Everything is gone." He was right. He was arrested on July 18 and soon afterward lost his lucrative position at the hospital.

Keirans, now 58, was arrested and charged at the local level before the feds came in and dropped the hammer. In December, he was indicted on seven federal charges, and on Monday, he pled guilty to two of them: one count of making a false statement to a National Credit Union Administration-insured institution and one count of aggravated identity theft. He now faces more than 30 years in prison. His sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled, and he remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals.

Woods' current whereabouts have not been reported.

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