A Kafkaesque Tale of Identity Theft and Injustice
In a beige-walled courtroom in eastern Iowa, a man who had spent his entire life as William Woods faced the man who had hijacked his identity for decades. This hearing marked the end of a legal saga described by prosecutors as a "Kafkaesque plot" that led to the false imprisonment, involuntary hospitalization, and forced medication of the real William Woods. It also sealed the fate of Matthew Keirans, the impostor who had built a middle-class life using Woods’s name before the truth unraveled. Seated 15 feet apart, the two men represented the devastating consequences of identity theft and the failure of the justice system to distinguish victim from perpetrator. William Woods recounted his ordeal, including being jailed for "being myself," while Judge C.J. Williams sentenced Keirans to 12 years in prison for stealing Woods’s identity and manipulating the criminal justice system. The judge emphasized the irreplaceable loss Woods suffered, stating, "What the victim was deprived of here was priceless. It’s freedom."
The Man Who Stole a Name
Matthew Keirans, now 58, had constructed an entire life as William Woods, complete with a wife, a son, and a stable job as a high-level IT administrator at the University of Iowa’s hospital. To the world, he was Woods, and the real Woods was left to struggle on the fringes of society. The exact details of how Keirans assumed Woods’s identity remain unclear, but prosecutors suggest their lives intersected in the late 1980s in Albuquerque, where both were homeless and working at hot dog carts. Woods believes Keirans stole his wallet and used the information to take over his identity. By 1990, Keirans was using Woods’s name to obtain identification documents, and by the mid-1990s, he had erased all traces of his real name, replacing it entirely with Woods’s identity. He even used Ancestry.com to gather information about Woods’s family, which helped him obtain Woods’s birth certificate from Kentucky. This fraudulent documentation convinced investigators in Los Angeles that Keirans was the real Woods, further entrenching the impostor’s lies.
A Victim of the System
William Woods, 56, has spent his life struggling to make ends meet, working as a hot dog vendor and a jewelry maker while often being homeless. Despite his hardships, he consistently and clearly asserted his identity in courtrooms across California, where he was falsely accused of stealing his own name. However, his credibility was undermined by his unconventional behavior, such as interrupting judges and making references to historical figures or claims of warning the FBI about the 9/11 attacks. These actions led his court-appointed lawyer to question his mental competence, resulting in nearly five months in a psychiatric hospital and 428 days in county jail. Woods eventually pleaded no contest to the charges to avoid further incarceration, but the legal system continued to doubt him. A California judge even dismissed his insistence on his identity, stating, "That’s because he was crazy." Woods’s efforts to reclaim his name were met with skepticism by authorities in California and Wisconsin, who often sided with Keirans. It wasn’t until Woods contacted the University of Iowa, where Keirans worked, that an investigator took his claims seriously and uncovered the truth through DNA evidence.
The Truth Revealed
The turning point came when Detective Ian Mallory of the University of Iowa police department arranged for DNA tests to verify Woods’s identity. Comparing the DNA of Woods, who was living in a shelter in Santa Monica, with that of his father in Kentucky, Mallory conclusively proved that the real William Woods was the man in California. Armed with this evidence, Mallory interviewed Keirans, who stumbled over questions about his family and eventually confessed. The confession and subsequent guilty plea brought some closure to Woods, but the scars of his ordeal remained. Despite the legal victory, Woods struggled to rebuild his life, often sleeping near a truck stop and relying on a barbershop for basic necessities. However, with his name finally restored, he found hope and began to rebuild, securing an apartment, starting a landscaping job, and seeking compensation for his wrongful conviction.
A Life Reclaimed
The outcome of the case has left William Woods with a renewed sense of hope and justice. "The truth is known," he said after Keirans’s sentencing. "The truth is let out. And the truth is important." While the road to recovery is long, Woods is determined to move forward, working with a law firm to seek compensation and rebuilding his life. Meanwhile, Matthew Keirans is now facing the consequences of his decades-long deception, stripped of the identity he stole and the life he built on lies. The case raises profound questions about the fragility of identity, the fallibility of the justice system, and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable injustice.
Reflections on Justice and Identity
The story of William Woods and Matthew Keirans serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities inherent in modern identity systems and the devastating consequences of bureaucratic failures. It challenges us to consider how easily a person’s name and reputation can be hijacked and how difficult it can be to reclaim them once lost. Woods’s ordeal underscores the importance of believing victims and ensuring that the justice system does not perpetuate further harm. While the resolution of this case brings some measure of justice, it also highlights the need for systemic changes to prevent similar injustices in the future. For William Woods, the restoration of his name is not just a legal victory but a reclaiming of his dignity and humanity.
