“When Your Doppelgänger Is An Over-Achieving Criminal”

A fast-food stand encounter turns into a 35-year identity heist, complete with a doppelgänger, Kafkaesque legal chaos, and a con artist who faxes his way to infamy.

#MindOfMarlar is written by Darren Marlar, host of Weird Darkness

Imagine waking up one morning to discover that your doppelgänger not only exists but has been living a far more successful life than you—using your name. This isn’t the plot of a supernatural thriller or an elaborate changeling legend (although, come to think of it, that would make a pretty good premise for a film); no, it’s the bizarre reality that befell William Donald Woods, whose identity was hijacked by a man with an ambition that can only be described as “evil genius-level commitment.”

This all began in the late 1980s at an unlikely setting: a hot dog cart in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I say “unlikely setting” because, really, who’s going to trust a vendor to have edible hot dogs from a food cart in the heat of the New Mexico desert? Anyway, Matthew David Keirans took one look at Willy Woods and thought, “This guy has a life worth stealing!” Because, naturally, when one shares a tray of chili dogs with a colleague, the next logical step is grand-scale identity theft. What better life could one possibly pilfer from a pitiful peddler? (I like alliteration, can you tell?)

Mr. Miscreant Matthew Kierans slowly but surely assumed Willy’s identity over the next 35 years. He started small, obtaining a fraudulent Colorado ID in 1990. By 1991, he had escalated to making major life choices in William’s name, including purchasing a car with bad checks. The authorities, possibly too busy handling other cases of food vendor crime, let the grand-theft auto incident slide, and Matt Keirans saw this as the green light from his lord Lucifer to go all-in. “Hey, if the cops don’t care enough to chase you, why stop,” he probably thought.

So Matt didn’t stop – not only did he steal Willy’s name—he stole the poor man’s entire existence. Matt got married in 1994 (as Willy Woods), had a child with his unsuspecting new bride (as Willy Woods), and even climbed the corporate ladder (as Willy Woods)… all while masquerading as a completely different person (Willy Woods). He eventually landed a high-level hospital administrator job, the kind of gig that you would think would require extensive background checks, but no. Somehow, Kierans waltzed in with more access to critical systems than a hacker in a Mission: Impossible movie. Between 2014 and 2022, he secured loans totaling over $250,000, all while his victim, the real Mr. Woods, was left wondering why his credit score resembled a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

But the real nightmare began in 2019, when the real Mr. Woods was now homeless in Los Angeles, trying to dispute some suspicious credit activity attributed to him. Picture it: a man walks into a bank with his real Social Security card and ID, only to be told he doesn’t actually exist—at least, not as himself. In a twist that would make even doppelgängers jealous, Matt Keirans, operating from the shadows in Wisconsin, faxed in fraudulent documents and insisted that he was the real Woods. The bank, perhaps forgetting that people do, in fact, look different in person than in faxes, believed him.

The result? The man whose identity was stolen – the real Willy Woods – was arrested on felony charges for, well, pretending to be the real Willy Woods. To add insult to injury, in what could be described as a scene out of a TV sitcom, a California judge ruled him mentally incompetent to stand trial. William spent 428 days in jail, 147 days in a mental hospital, and was forced to take medication—all because he claimed to be himself – and that someone (perhaps an evil twin he never knew existed) had committed identity fraud with the confidence of a Nigerian Prince offering to make you rich.

Meanwhile, Matthew Keirans, still living his best stolen life, doubled down (or possibly tripled down – considering how deep this has become) on his deception, telling authorities that the other guy claiming to be Willy Woods was “crazy” and should “be locked up.” (Is your head spinning yet?) The court agreed, slapping the actual Mr. Woods with fines and even billing him $118,000 for his own forced hospital stay, presumably because irony knows no bounds.

It finally took DNA evidence to bring about the truth. In January 2023, Woods (the real Woods, not the Wicked one) reached out to security officials at the University of Iowa hospital, sparking an investigation that finally revealed Matthew Keirans as the true fraudster. Confronted now with irrefutable proof that Matthew Kierans was neither a real Woods, nor a changeling or doppelgänger (which I still think would’ve made this story that much cooler) materialistic Matt was arrested and plucked out of his semi-charmed kind of life. When grabbed, the weight of reality struck him quite hard, as he was heard wailing, “My life is over! Everything is gone!”

Um… yeah. You do realize you were never supposed to have that life in the first place, right?

In April 2024, Keirans pleaded guilty to multiple charges, receiving a 12-year federal prison sentence… assuming he can’t steal the identify of a prison guard and get out early.

The real William Woods was finally exonerated, free to reclaim his identity—though at this point, with his credit score lower than the chances of me getting out bed before noon, he might be better off opting for a completely new name – one without a history of hot dog cart encounters. I understand the name “Matthew Kierans” hasn’t been used in a while!

If there’s a moral to this tale, it’s this: if someone at an outdoor food stand starts showing an unsettling amount of interest in your birthday, maybe don’t tell them. Also, banks should probably start checking faxes a little more thoroughly. Third… why the heck are banks still using faxes? And finally, if your doppelgänger shows up, pray it’s a harmless supernatural oddity and not a Wisconsin-based con artist looking to take your life on a multi-decade joyride.

(Sources: OddityCentral.com, Justice.gov)