Matthew Kieran's Identity Theft of the Unhoused with Lennon Parham

Writer, comedian, and director Lennon Parham is no stranger to true-con. Once, a locksmith robbed her home, though not as intelligently as one might hope a locksmith would approach the job. With Laci, she discovers the strange story of Matthew Kieran's identity theft. William Woods, an unhoused man, has his identity stolen by a con artist, Matthew Kieran. The state of California was so classist and so convinced by the fraudster that they told the victim, William, he could no longer use his own name. Thirty years later, they were so entangled in one another that a child even got caught in the crossfire, and William had to spend time in a psych ward. You'll never believe how the truth came to light. Keep the scams coming and snitch on your friends by emailing us at [email protected]. Follow on Instagram: Scam Goddess Pod: @scamgoddesspod Laci Mosley: @divalaci Lennon Parham: @lennonparham See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  911, what's your emergency?

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here.

• 0:12Speaker 02

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 0:16Speaker 02

  Nothing swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues for Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Ryan Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 0:30Speaker 03

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• 2:45Laci Mosley?

  What's poppin', congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Mosley, aka Scam Goddess, back with another episode of the comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them. You know what? We might laugh at them, but we'll never laugh at the victims because it's not your fault. Need congregation, I need y'all to what? Yes, go ahead, stand up. Stand up out of your pew. Get up out of your seat while you're driving. Y'all, as long as you're at a red light, yes. And please give it up for Gradual to the Pride Citizens Brigade, but you know her from so much more than that, okay? I'm talking shows like Deep, Parks and Recreation, Comedy Bang Bang, Arrested Development, Lady Dynamite, and Mad Men with a frequent collaborator, Jessica St. Clair.

• 3:29Laci Mosley?

  She created and co-starred in NBC's Best Friends Forever and USA Network's Playing How. I could literally read Lennon's bio forever, okay? Including she directed episodes of Going Dutch that I was in. Like Lennon is that girl, period, alright? She's also...

• 3:50Laci Mosley?

  Parma St. Clair spun off their comedy Bang Bang characters, Wampler and Lister, for a new earwarp podcast called Womp It Up. So you can also listen to Womp It Up, yes. I'm the best, right? With St. Clair as the host and Marissa Wampler and Parma co-hosting. Yes, there's so many places to listen to Lennon. There's so many places to watch her on TV, whether she's in front of the screen or she's behind the camera. And I'm so glad to have her here today. Y'all, please give it up for Lennon. Lennon, it's good to see you.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Blessed assurance, Jesus is just the...

• 4:24Laci Mosley?

  Welcome to church, welcome to church, yes.

• 4:28Laci Mosley?

  We love a good hymnal to start. So you join the choir?

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, absolutely. I am, I'll do any solo that you want me to do. Happily, happily. Soprano, alto, whatever you need, I got you.

• 4:41Laci Mosley?

  I love that before we do our money movement ministry, you know, you gotta really get people in the mood to give.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  That's right, that's right. Not enough that your dad is like asking if passing, passing the tray, passing it down.

• 4:54Laci Mosley?

  Absolutely.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Offertory.

• 4:56Laci Mosley?

  And don't worry where it's going, okay? Just know it, just know it's flowing, okay? We're getting to somebody. Somebody in need of our money is getting it.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  You owe it to them for all they've done for you.

• 5:07Laci Mosley?

  Exactly. So I usually ask on this podcast, but I have been switching it up. So what I do ask you, if you have any relationship with scams, then I'm gonna share a little listener letter that we've gotten. As always, you can send in your letters to Snitch. Here we go. Snitch on your friends, family, and your enemies at [email protected]. We may just read them a lot on the show. I know it's been a minute, guys, but I told you I was bringing it back. But first, Lennon, I want to know about you. Did you, were any scams poppin' when you were younger? Or even as an adult now? It could be anything.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, growing up in the South, I think there was always an adult trying to pull one over on a child.

• 5:47Laci Mosley?

  Oh, no!

• 5:48Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Just like there was like an adult authority thing. And I very, my mom taught me to, like, that I was equal to those adults. So that did not go well, really, early on. But the, the, the one that pops out in my mind is...

• 6:07Speaker 00

  Okay, and I don't know if this is like a thing that happens out in the world or if it just was a one-time thing. But when my husband and I first moved to LA, we had a, we rented a place, like it was a, it was like a duplex sort of in the...

• 6:23Laci Mosley?

  Like when they took one of those big houses and kind of cut it up into smaller apartments.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, so we were on the bottom, no, we were on the top. And our landlady, landlord was on the bottom. But it was, it was like in this remote part of Echo Park where it's a walking trail. So you park on the street and then you go upstairs and then you have to walk down a brick path, past three other houses.

• 6:47Laci Mosley?

  What if Dateline, like, sold houses?

• 6:50Speaker 00

  I don't know what that means, but yes.

• 6:51Laci Mosley?

  Like, I mean, like, the type of house you would see on Dateline. You know what I mean? Like, if you went on Zillow and you were like, as featured on Dateline. Because what do you mean, house in a wooden path area? Then have to leave the lip path area to get it out.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  And then you pass by like a little cabin and there were, there were trails that led to the backyards of other houses. But our house was the last house and...

• 7:14Laci Mosley?

  Okay, also sounds like a horror movie title. The Last House.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  The Last House. And it, there was like a stone archway that had been built that said like 1879 or something on the front of it. And our, our landlady had locked herself out and she called a locksmith and they came and let her in. And about two days later, I came home and the front door was unlocked. And we had been broken into.

• 7:43Laci Mosley?

  Oh, no.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  And I looked around to see what they had taken.

• 7:47Laci Mosley?

  Like a Brink's type things, glasses breaking or like...

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Well, that's the thing. Yes, there was broken glass. But I think that they were trying to stage it to look like it was a robbery when really it was the locksmith.

• 8:05Laci Mosley?

  Wow.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Because when I did my, like, and I was watching The Closer a lot, like Kira Sedgwick's The Closer.

• 8:13Laci Mosley?

  Okay, okay, so you were locked in at this period. You were locked in.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  And so when I walked in, I knew something was off. And then I walked into, I think, our, our guest room where our like giant iMac should have been and it was gone. And then I went in to see they had taken my grandmother's jewelry.

• 8:34Laci Mosley?

  Oh, no.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  Which was like random.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  And then I, I tried to figure out how did they get in? Because they went out the front door, I think. And there was a footprint on top of the washing machine, like on a towel that was on top. But the, the footprint, had they broken in from the outside, would be facing in, away from the window.

• 9:00Laci Mosley?

  See, so I ain't got shit on you. You can't, you said scoot over, iced tea. Let me get my white gloves out and start looking around, okay?

• 9:06Speaker 00

  It was facing out. And the broken glass that would have been on the inside, if they had broken that window to get in, was outside of the window, on the, on the dirt path. So I know somebody let themselves in with a lock in that room and then staged it to look like they broke in from the outside but not thinking like, oh, right, all of that glass and those dirt prints should be the other direction.

• 9:35Laci Mosley?

  Right, if you're breaking in. Also, I'm confused, this is like, okay, if you're a locksmith and you don't want it to get pointed back to you, why not just break in like a normal robber? Like, why did you add the locksmith element to it all? It was unnecessary. Like, that's like a hat on a hat. They won't know it was me if I used my locksmith toolkit. But then I make it look like a robbery. Just make it look like a robbery.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Well, they didn't break into our landlord's apartment. They only broke into ours. So like, they had, they had let her back into that apartment, I think. And they were like, oh, we won't break into that one because they'll know it's us. But we'll break into the, the one above it.

• 10:16Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, the logic here wasn't great for my locksmith guys. Like, I kind of wish they would have just stuck to unlocking doors for people legally because the second they tried to like really upgrade themselves...

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, and stage it, yeah. Yeah, they, they never got caught, though. I don't know.

• 10:33Laci Mosley?

  I usually tell people with imposter syndrome to just keep trying, but sometimes you shoot above your, your, your belt level. And this feels like they weren't skilled enough to go to the next level of breaking into people's homes. Like...

• 10:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:47Laci Mosley?

  Well, this is a short little scam letter, so we'll get to it before we get to our historic hoodwink today. So I need a fake name for this person, Lennon. Um, we don't care about gender on this show. And as always, snitch on your friends, family, yourself, your enemies at [email protected].

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Okay, the name is Talise.

• 11:06Laci Mosley?

  Ooh, Talise, where did that come from? Yeah, that loaded. You know a Talise, girl?

• 11:15Laci Mosley?

  So, Talise says, hey, I just found your podcast and I'm obsessed with it. Thank you, Talise. I'm, this letter is from a little while ago. I'm not gonna say how long because you're not gonna know how trifling I am, but Talise, I hope that you really hung on.

• 11:29Laci Mosley?

  Tell me, I hope you're still here.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  You never lose listeners.

• 11:32Laci Mosley?

  Please hit on social media after this episode comes out.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  Get on Blue Sky or wherever we're supposed to be these days.

• 11:39Laci Mosley?

  Threats, like please, tell me you still let me, please tell me you're still there. I need to know, okay? We're gonna be looking for you, Taliesin. So Taliesin says that, um, I've been thinking about if I had a story and I couldn't think of any, so I remember the story of how my dad was involved in a scam when I was a kid, but in a pretty unusual way. So there was a local business in my area when I was growing up that happened to have a phone number that was one digit from my dad's cellphone number. At some point, some scammers created another business in quotes that basically replicated the legit one, but just never followed through on their products. The fake business had a website with fake addresses and a fake number,

• 12:22Laci Mosley?

  which, which was just like one digit off of the other business's information, or like one letter off of their street name, like all of it was just like almost identical. And so for years, uh, Taliesin says, "My dad would get calls from angry customers about how he stole their money and didn't deliver." He was really confused about it for a while because he had no other ties to the business. And people weren't explaining what was going on, because they thought he was playing dumb. So basically, Taliesin's father allowed a scam to go on forever.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 12:59Laci Mosley?

  What do you mean for years? You never thought to go to the business father and tell them, "Hey, I keep getting it."

• 13:04Speaker 00

  Did he not know that his number was one off? I mean, I think, because once you get the call multiple times, you gotta be, right? And this is before call blocking and all that stuff. You would just get a, yeah, right?

• 13:17Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, but like, I'm not a phone number nowhere, you know? That's not my thing.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  So how would he have found out about this other business?

• 13:26Laci Mosley?

  I feel like at a certain point, you have to be like, "What services am I offering? What's the name of my business?" Like, but to be this unbothered, I kinda love your dad, Taliesin, that much, that he just kept getting angry phone calls and was like, "I don't get it." And then just going about his day, like so unbothered.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  And like kinda taking it and being like, "I hear you, I hear you. I have no idea what you're talking about." "A lot of people keep calling me. It's not me. I don't know what's going on."

• 13:53Laci Mosley?

  I hope it made him feel like they're important and loved. It's like, "Oh, my phone's always ringing off the hook. People always calling me, hooting and hollering."

• 14:01Speaker 00

  I gotta let them know.

• 14:03Laci Mosley?

  When they call, they always have so much passion. Look, there's never a boring call in my life.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  What were the services? Like, what were the services that he, that these other people had supposedly offered? And who was paying a random place for that?

• 14:15Laci Mosley?

  And there was a brick and mortar store in their neighborhood, so I'm guessing that's why when people called and didn't get the services, they were also confused, because they were like, "We know you have a physical business here. I don't know what the services are." That was never said. Taliesin does not tell us what the services are.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  We need more info. We need more details.

• 14:33Laci Mosley?

  You need to tell us what the business was, the legit one and the fake one. Because what are these services? Was the service supposed to come to me? It says that he was stealing their money or he didn't deliver. Was he physically delivering? Or delivering physically?

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Well, like it said, like a pizza place. And they ordered and they, what, they give their credit card over and some, some rando is running it? Like, are they sending a check?

• 15:00Laci Mosley?

  Taliesin, if you're still out there, these are questions that need answers, because as simple as a story as this was, uh, I'm trying to make out if your dad's not really a part of the scam or if he is. Uh, because right now, Taliesin, I'm not quite sure. We don't know what the products or the services were. We don't know, what, what, what if he was a part of the scam of it all? And he, those calls just came, because why did those calls last? I don't know, Taliesin. Hmm.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  We need more info.

• 15:31Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, Lennon, I'm on your side. I feel like that there's too much left out here for me to know who's the scammer and who was just accidentally involved in the scam. Scams!

• 15:43Laci Mosley?

  911, what's your emergency?

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder wantons. 911 Nashville returns.

• 15:53Speaker 06

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  All since swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 16:02Speaker 06

  That's one of the plagues in the Bible.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Bryant-Philippi, 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 16:12Speaker 07

  Hola a todos. Soy Jamie Lynn Sigler. Cuando me diagnosticaron, tenía veintitantos años y todo mi mundo cambió por completo. Pero con el tiempo decidí que no iba a permitir que eso frenara mi vida. Quise tomar las riendas y después de hablar con mi médico sobre mis opciones, la elección para mí fue obvia. Boom! Eso es KISSIMTA. Obtenga más información sobre KISSIMTA o FOTUMA MAP en kissimta.com.

• 16:42Speaker 03

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• 17:12Speaker 07

  Whether you're buying, renting, or selling, Zillow can help make your someday today. To help find a home that fits where you are in life, or that apartment that's a little closer to where you want to be, Zillow has the right information, tools, and support to help turn your future home into a reality. Because someday starts today. Visit zillow.com/today to get started.

• 17:38Laci Mosley?

  Cuts! Since we don't know who's who, that brings us into my favorite segment of the show. And what a lovely segue, historic hoodwinkings. This is where I work with Gail, Lennon with the famous con cave group of criminals. We'll get her opinion all throughout. Maybe we like them, maybe we hate them, maybe we can't figure out who they are. Uh, so for 30 years, Matthew David Kirins assumed the identity of another man so convincingly that his victim was forcibly medicated and jailed for identity theft himself. So this is Matthew. He's our scammer.

• 18:17Laci Mosley?

  He has a face that a mother who still honored at the door.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  Have questions about his neck, to be honest.

• 18:27Laci Mosley?

  Good love. Yeah, yeah, questions like, "Where did it go? Is it, is it coming back?"

• 18:34Speaker 00

  It's straight down from his, from the top of his head.

• 18:36Laci Mosley?

  Right. Is it in the room with us?

• 18:38Speaker 00

  Was he only working his neck out? He does look like parts of him worked out.

• 18:44Laci Mosley?

  Maybe. It is kinda giving Lego build, though. He was like, he had shoulders and they were like, "And the head." And then we're done.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Pop it off.

• 18:52Laci Mosley?

  Or maybe, or maybe you're right, Lennon. Maybe he was doing those neck ups. You know, they put the, the big heavy weights on the back of the neck and they do the neck ups.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Heck, yeah.

• 19:01Laci Mosley?

  So Matthew here, uh, he's our scammer. And his victim was William Woods, who is now 55. He's been down on his luck for a long time. This is William. He looks like what life has put him through. He looks like, like he could have been on Cast Away, the movie.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  He does. Trapped on an island. Is this a real picture of this real man?

• 19:28Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, and I don't want to make fun of, like, because he's the victim, so I'm not trying to make fun of him in a way that I'm like, coming for his looks. I'm coming for his, the way his experience looks like. Like, this man looks like he's been through.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Kenny Rogers down here.

• 19:42Laci Mosley?

  Yeah.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:43Laci Mosley?

  Like, he looked like he definitely sent like a message in a bottle before, like, but really waited on his return. Like, maybe he's even received some.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  So what happened was the gentleman, the aforementioned neck, stole his identity and then did so many nasty things with his funds. Oh, they worked.

• 20:06Laci Mosley?

  At a certain point.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  Together.

• 20:09Laci Mosley?

  He was working like odd jobs in New Mexico in the eighties, then as a day laborer in El Paso, Texas, and then at a laundromat in Las Vegas. Eventually, she, he moved to Southern California. This is William Wood, the victim. William says that he stayed in hotels and motels and lived on the streets and sold gemstones, gold scraps, and other items he found on the streets of downtown LA's jewelry district. In 2015, a YouTuber known as Fousey Tube found William living on the street and created a series of videos with more than 1 million views, each documenting Fousey Tube giving William food and paying for him to stay in a motel.

• 20:48Laci Mosley?

  So this is, uh, Yusuf, and he has a YouTube channel where he goes outside, um, to visit unhoused people and make videos of them, which is a thing that people do now for money.

• 21:08Laci Mosley?

  How do you feel about that? Because on one hand, I'm like, they are helping, but on the other hand, I'm like, do we have to be on YouTube? But also, the money you're making from YouTube is that helping you help more people. I don't know.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  It's questionable for sure. Uh, I mean, I guess it depends on the, the type. I mean, I feel like the, the lasting help is better, not the one-time handout. The, the organizations that are there doing the work and knowing that, that know the population and are able to actually help on a consistent basis and help to support, you know, folks in the way that they want to be helped.

• 21:47Laci Mosley?

  I love that. And I love what you said at the end about in the way that they want to be helped and not just being like, "This is what we think you deserve. And also, we got a camera in your face. YouTube." And I'm like, that is gross to me. But seeing people help and knowing where to donate and things like that, if you can't physically be out there, you're right, then there's like two sides of this. I absolutely agree.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  So he's getting him housed for the night, but he's gonna pay for it?

• 22:09Laci Mosley?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 22:11Laci Mosley?

  And side note, this Mr. Fousey gentleman, he also was in, um, the movie Boo, Madea Halloween. So.

• 22:21Speaker 00

  So he does, I mean, he's multifaceted. We got a lot of men with many different versions of of personalities. Like, we have-

• 22:29Laci Mosley?

  That's why they got along. He was like, I do lots of different things too. I make these YouTube videos on the street. I, I work with Madea, uh, on Halloween.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  I see myself in you. We have all different parts.

• 22:39Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, serial entrepreneurs. So William would use the money that Fousey gave him to pay for a credit monitoring service and learned that someone was racking up debt and opening accounts under his name. So he was telling people like, something's up. I know I didn't open these accounts, these cards, like I didn't have access to my money. And now this Fousey man slash Madea star has helped me. So an assistant manager at the bank, and this is in August of 2019, he, William went to this bank in LA. And at this branch, told the assistant manager that he discovered someone was using his credit card and accumulated a large amount of debt.

• 23:18Laci Mosley?

  He wanted the account numbers with his name on them so he could close them out. Normal thing for someone to want to do. He gave the assistant manager his social security card and his California ID. There were bank accounts in his name with lots of money in them, but William couldn't answer the security questions. The assistant manager called the phone number on the bank accounts and the person on the line did answer the questions correctly. The bank employee called the police on the real guy.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:46Laci Mosley?

  So the LAPD officers arrived, they didn't believe someone had used William's social security number. They didn't believe it was his card.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  Okay, so the bank, the accounts are full of money, so they weren't full of debts?

• 24:01Laci Mosley?

  So he was taking out loans and taking out debt, this fake William.

• 24:08Speaker 00

  Oh, I see.

• 24:09Laci Mosley?

  And that's how he had money coming in, because he was using it for crime. He was doing all types of things. He's doing this all under this poor William's name, right?

• 24:17Speaker 00

  And the police did not believe him when he went to say, because he couldn't answer the security question. But how would he answer it if he had not opened the account in, in the beginning?

• 24:28Laci Mosley?

  I also don't think that was the only reason the security guards didn't help him. I feel like he didn't know how to use his whiteness in this moment. Like, you can't come in here looking like Castaway babes. You should've went to CVS first, got yourself a little shape. But you put your little, put your little cologne on. Get, get really in your malarkey bag. Like, you can't-

• 24:46Speaker 00

  Something happened and there's some kind of self doubt that is, that's hiding. It's like, um, Samson and Delilah situation. Like, he does not want to cut, he needs to always have some kind of a-

• 24:58Laci Mosley?

  Yeah. He went into the bank looking like he just finished a convo with Wilson. So I'm like, I don't think the bank is gonna believe you over this guy on the phone who can answer all the security questions, which is fucked up to see, but here we are.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  So Nick is, is answering these questions far away and saying, I'm the real guy?

• 25:16Laci Mosley?

  I'm the real, I'm the real-

• 25:19Speaker 00

  But was he also like wiggling in his boots because now the real guy's on to him?

• 25:24Laci Mosley?

  Now Nick has been doing this for a while, so-

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Years.

• 25:28Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, so I'm not sure at this point if, like, I feel like Nick has come up with so much confidence, just on the base, the way that he moved throughout stealing from William. That, I think he was like, hey, mister officer. Like, I think he's like, you know-

• 25:40Speaker 00

  He is using his whiteness as use-

• 25:43Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, he's using it right, and the other guy's using it wrong. He's palling up with officers like, I didn't see you on the greens this weekend.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  What weight do you use?

• 25:54Laci Mosley?

  Right, and William's up here like, please, please give me my identity. And they're like, you're crazy. You're crazy, get out of here, crazy.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Well, that's also, you know, one's in person and one's on the phone. So it's also like, someone that needs to go into a physical branch to do their banking, you know what I mean?

• 26:15Laci Mosley?

  Right.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  But this was also in the before times, when Chase still existed in person.

• 26:20Laci Mosley?

  Because that is also a classless thing. You're right. Like, people not taking cash anymore like they used to. Or if you physically go into a bank to deposit a check, they're like, what are you going through? Like, why are you paying something in person? Like, yeah, you literally feel like you're on good times. Yeah, absolutely understand. So, when, you know, the LAPD arrived, obviously, they did not believe poor William. Um, they talked to the real account holder, Mr. Thickneck, on the phone, who faxed them a copy of another social security card, a Wisconsin driver's license, and a Kentucky birth certificate. The cops arrested poor William. He spent two years locked up, awaiting trial. Yeah.

• 27:05Laci Mosley?

  Including more than a hundred days in a psychiatric hospital.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  No, baby.

• 27:12Laci Mosley?

  Because he was losing his mind because the whole world was telling him that he-

• 27:16Speaker 00

  He's not who he said he is.

• 27:17Laci Mosley?

  Yeah. Eventually, he pleaded no contest to identity theft and false impersonation in exchange for a time served sentence and immediate release from custody. So he just said he was guilty so he could get out of jail.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Well, now where's Fousey through all this? Is he filming Madea in Atlanta? Like, why isn't he stepping up?

• 27:39Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, maybe Fousey had to go film, uh-

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Madea's Last Wish.

• 27:44Laci Mosley?

  And Madea goes to Hanukkah or something because he was supposed to be helping. You're right. Where did he go? So, um-

• 27:54Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 27:56Laci Mosley?

  Oh, man, this is-

• 27:57Speaker 00

  Wait, is this, is this, what is this picture?

• 28:01Laci Mosley?

  So now we're seeing, this is, um-

• 28:03Speaker 00

  Thickneck. Okay, so he got, he gets married in 1994, but he still used the other guy's name. This is like, uh, this is a, um, sleeping with the enemy, like-

• 28:17Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, he's like unrelenting, like he will not-

• 28:19Speaker 00

  Single white female, like, wow.

• 28:25Speaker 03

  911, what's your emergency?

• 28:29Speaker 03

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 28:36Speaker 06

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Hellson swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 28:44Speaker 06

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 28:55Speaker 07

  Hola a todos. Soy Jamie Lynn Sigler. Cuando me diagnosticaron, tenía veintitantos años, y todo mi mundo cambió por completo. Pero con el tiempo decidí que no iba a permitir que eso frenara mi vida. Quise tomar las riendas, y después de hablar con mi médico sobre mis opciones, la elección para mí fue obvia. Boom, eso es Kisimta. Obtenga más información sobre Kisimta o fotommap en kisimta.com.

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• 30:21Laci Mosley?

  So, finally, I'm just happy that he got out of jail, but this is gonna ruin his life, obviously. But he was the real William Wood. We know that, right? And this con began 30 years earlier at a hot dog cart in Albuquerque. William, the victim, had been working at that hot dog cart for years when Matthew, who was our Thickneck, was hired in 1988. The two guys didn't interact until William's wallet went missing. Matthew admitted to stealing the wallet and gave it back. William's social security card's still inside. So Matthew was like, my bad, man. I did steal your wallet because, you know, it was, it was left around for stealing.

• 31:01Laci Mosley?

  But here it is. You can have it back. But it didn't matter if he physically had the wallet, because obviously he's already copied the contents, right? But poor little, poor little Matthew, sorry, poor little William.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Went down at a hot dog cart? I mean-

• 31:16Laci Mosley?

  Because remember, like, at the time, William was working all those jobs. This is before he met Fousey, between Fousey's Madea job-

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, this was back in his New Mexico days, right?

• 31:26Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, I also like calling, um, Matthew Thickneck, because Matthew and William sound like the same name to me. It's the same name in a different font, and it's confusing me.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  It's our forefathers. It's definitely-

• 31:37Laci Mosley?

  So Thickneck is, is the evil guy, guys. I'm not gonna say Matthew. And he was just like, every, every Matthew's a scam. This could be anybody if I keep saying his name. So Thickneck stopped using his own name, birthday, or social security number, and only used William's name and info for employment, insurance, driver's licenses, titles, loans, and credit. He even paid taxes under his former coworker's name.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  That sounds like psycho, psychosis.

• 32:04Laci Mosley?

  Right? So he took this man's identity for so long that the man couldn't prove that it was his to get it back, because this man has now established so many different lines of credit. He's even like paying taxes and doing like illegal things under this poor man's name. Thickneck was busy.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, and also like, the choice to steal this guy's identity. Like, how down on your luck do you have to be? Like, his life must be better than mine. He's got this steady job at the hot dog cart, you know?

• 32:36Laci Mosley?

  Right. He at least has some decent credit.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  Steal some investment banker or something's identity, like-

• 32:45Laci Mosley?

  Because I feel like that person probably would find out faster. Like, an investment banker is more likely to be opening lines of credit than somebody who seems to be like, kind of like, in and out of being housed and seems to like, probably not have a bank account, like- Like, he wasn't calling the bank when he went to the bank, right?

• 33:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:03Laci Mosley?

  Versus if this is like a, a Wall Street Chad, he's probably paying a little bit more attention to his bank account.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  The ins and outs and the ups and downs of the market.

• 33:12Laci Mosley?

  One thing I say, I will say I do respect about this is Thickneck did keep his scam going. Thickneck didn't try to get greedy. He tried to go above and beyond. He, he named his child-

• 33:25Speaker 00

  He named his child the Wood, like with Woods is the last name.

• 33:29Laci Mosley?

  Naming your kid with a last name, though, is so funny. So she, look, so he just stayed with the bit. He stayed with the bit. He gave him the last names. I mean, we gotta give him the commitment to the bit. In the nineties, he got a Colorado ideas, William Woods, then a job at a fast food restaurant. He must have been doing something at these jobs he was getting fired from. Cause he kept needing to have Matthew's identity and the new ID.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  Maybe he was, yeah, maybe he was looking for other people's identities to steal.

• 33:57Laci Mosley?

  So Thick Neck got married in ninety-four, again, using those names that he stole. And for some weird reason, in twenty twelve, Thick Neck requested and received a certificate, like a copy of William's birth certificate from Kentucky using information from ancestry.com.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  Okay. Oh, my God. This is so upsetting.

• 34:20Laci Mosley?

  Also, like, see, this is why I don't use ancestry.com, because it'll pull your DNA for your cousins, your second cousins.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  I do it, I do it, and you can set it to private. You're not sharing with other people, but if they're.

• 34:32Laci Mosley?

  Do we trust them when they say private? Cause they're always like, hey, girl, sorry about your privacy again. It's us. We gave it away.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  That is true. I have like a whole file folder for, for data, data loss, or whatever it's called.

• 34:45Laci Mosley?

  Right? Because I saw it every day. They're like, hey, girl, yeah, we gave away your data again. You didn't want it, did you? Did you want it?

• 34:52Speaker 00

  Here's a complimentary identity theft software that will be so difficult to set up.

• 34:58Laci Mosley?

  Just a heads up, change all your passwords. It was just a heads up, though, you know.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  Get your social security number. Don't worry, though. Don't worry.

• 35:05Laci Mosley?

  Somebody is being you right now, but if you hurry, you can catch Thick Neck before they get too far.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  Okay, but does, okay, Thick Neck gets married to someone using someone else's name and social security. Does that still count? Like, is he still legally married and entitled to all this stuff that he sets up in someone else's name?

• 35:26Laci Mosley?

  Well, you would think that the person whose real name is married would be the one entitled to any damn, or like any finances there, because on paper Thick Neck is not married to this woman.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Right. Not a real, not a real time.

• 35:39Laci Mosley?

  Mr. Woods is, so.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  Okay, so how did it all get come down?

• 35:44Laci Mosley?

  Child in Oregon, who also got the Woods last name, like we talked about. He, Thick Neck later got a job as a systems architect at the University of Iowa's hospitals and clinics under, again, William's name, because that's what he does now. And Thick Neck worked remotely from home in Wisconsin and was paid at least seven hundred thousand dollars by the hospital over a ten-year period between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty-two. He took out vehicle and personal loans in William's name for more than two hundred thousand dollars. He was living the middle-class dream with somebody else's name. So finally, we, we, our poor, our poor victim here, Mr. Woods, excuse me. He's tired of Thick Neck shit. He's, he's gotta do something, right?

• 36:28Laci Mosley?

  So the district's attorney's office charged the real William with two felonies. Again, not fake William. This is again. And so for two months, William is again, real William is back in jail. But he got a new lawyer this time, and he said he wanted an investigator, but the things he said didn't seem to make sense. In February twenty twenty, the judge found that William was not mentally competent to stand trial and ordered him into a psychiatric hospital. So things got worse for Mr. Woods. He was like, I'm telling y'all, I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. They're like, we're gonna put you in a psychiatric hospital. Eight months later, after delays and due bed space and COVID, our poor William was taken to the Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino.

• 37:12Laci Mosley?

  He was convicted in March twenty twenty-one. He pled no context. Uh, they crammed him.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  This is a real downer. This is a real downer.

• 37:22Laci Mosley?

  I know. And then, oh, and a hundred forty-seven days he had to spend in the hospital. So unfortunately, after all of this, he was ordered to stop using the name William Woods.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  Who was? The guy, the actual guy? Not Thick Neck?

• 37:42Laci Mosley?

  Not Thick Neck.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  He was told, he was ordered by the law to stop using his own name?

• 37:51Laci Mosley?

  Yeah.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  Wow. I'm gonna let that sit for a second.

• 37:55Laci Mosley?

  Yeah. Like, poor, poor William. He like, when it was all said and done, they were like, sorry, my bad. Uh, but also don't use that name no more.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  Okay. Tell me there's, tell me, tell me Thick Neck gets put away. Tell me Thick Neck gets caught.

• 38:11Laci Mosley?

  So in twenty twenty-one, real William.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 38:15Laci Mosley?

  Please stand up.

• 38:18Laci Mosley?

  Contacted the police department in Wisconsin and reported that Thick Neck had stolen his identity. That same month, Thick Neck goes to the police and says, I'm filing a claim too. You stole my identity. So now they're doing the Spider-Man meme at each other, like, who stole the identity? Me or you? And Thick Neck knows he stole the identity, but now, you know.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  But he's been living in, I mean, who really needs to be in a mental hospital? Like, he's been living this mu, with this other man's identity for this long. He believes it now, right?

• 38:50Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, why shouldn't he? The whole world has validated it and put this, the real William, you know, in the psychiatric, like psychiatric center. So, William, stay with me here. Good Lord, hate when this happens. William then filed customer disputes in an attempt to clear his credit report. Matthew filed a second identity theft complaint with local police and submitted this. So this is fake William. Matthew is like, I'm gonna file another complaint against real William, because real William keeps trying to file complaints against me. So in twenty twenty-three, this is where we learn that Thick Neck, we know where Thick Neck works. And William finds out, and William's on that ass.

• 39:33Laci Mosley?

  So William has Detective Ian Mallory collect DNA from the hospital that Thick Neck's biological father, who was listed on his real birth certificate, proving that Thick Neck was his own father's son. Stay with me here. So basically, real William figures out where Thick Neck works. Gets a sample of Thick Neck's DNA.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Secretly.

• 40:01Laci Mosley?

  Secretly has Detective Ian on the case. Whoop, whoop. And now we know that there's no way that Thick Neck could be William. Um, I feel so bad for William. He had to do all his own police work. He had to pay his own investigator.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  And this while in and out of a mental hospital. I mean, this is how serial killers are created. You wanna know the beginning of like a horror film down the, at the, at the last house on the end of the Brick Path? This is it. Cause he comes out of that mental hospital with nothing to lose.

• 40:35Laci Mosley?

  And I think you're right about him, because eventually Thick Neck does plead guilty in federal court. So Detective Ian Mallory goes as far to meet Thick Neck. And he tells Thick Neck, he's like, hey, there's this other guy, William, he says he's the real you. And Thick Neck's like, oh, that guy's crazy. He should be locked up and blah, blah, blah. And in the conversation, Mallory asked Thick Neck for his father's name. And Thick Neck accidentally said his real daddy name the first time and not his fake daddy's name that he stole. And that's how he gets caught. Accidental real daddy release. Wow. So then he pled guilty in federal court, Thick Neck did in twenty twenty-four. And in a letter written to the court on Thick Neck's behalf,

• 41:20Laci Mosley?

  his son identified him as the son of Matthew Kieran's formerly known as William Woods. In either case, known to me as dad, and Matthews was still sentenced to twelve years in prison. So love that your son was trying to be like, hey, uh, no, even though he was never, uh, Mr. Woods, he was always Mr. Woods. He was Daddy Woods to me. Sir, your dad is weird and you should not be defending him.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  That is a line from a Madea movie for sure.

• 41:48Laci Mosley?

  That, maybe that's where they got it from. It's like, that was Daddy Woods to them. Because, you know, Thick Neck also said, my life is over and everything is gone. And it's like, sir, your life should be over, because that's what you did to this poor man, Mr. Woods. You took his life away, his sanity, his health, his home. Like, what do you mean, we should, woe is you? Get your thick ass neck behind them bars. At least we know you can't shimmy out, because we know you're not getting that neck through the bars.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  Nope. Getting stuck like one of those children's toys.

• 42:16Laci Mosley?

  Oh, gosh.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Those plastic ones that are up and down straight.

• 42:21Laci Mosley?

  Oh, well, that brings us to the end of what was a strange episode. Uh, Lennon, but I'm so happy to have you here, though, uh, making it fun and light for me. We always have something on this podcast. Where would you like to be found? Where do you want people to hear your show, see your work, whatever that is?

• 42:38Speaker 00

  You could follow me on Instagram at Lennon Parham, and that's it.

• 42:42Laci Mosley?

  Yes, and you can find us at Scam Goddess Pod if you wanna see this man's thick ass neck.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  It is so thick. I encourage you, log in.

• 42:52Laci Mosley?

  For that alone.

• 42:53Speaker 00

  Look at it, because you will not believe your eyes.

• 42:56Laci Mosley?

  Follow me and my shenanigans at D I B A L A C I D Valacy on all platforms. So congregation, yeah, y'all get out there and, uh, I mean, your neck don't need to be this thick, okay? But don't stop believing. Apparently, you can be anybody you wanna be, including somebody else for the rest of their lives. Don't recommend them. Don't recommend.

• 43:18Laci Mosley?

  Scam Goddess is an iHeart Media and Big Money Players production. The show is hosted by me, Lacey Mosley. The SVP of West Coast Productions, Jack O'Brien, Vice President of Programming, Miles Gray, and Director of Programming, Lindsay Hoffman, oversee production. Our executive producer is Joelle Monique. Our senior producer is Bea Haskins. Ina Burke is SVP of Content, with additional services provided by Mark Canton, Dylan Unger, and the team at Hot Dog Sandwich. Our editor is engineer Justin Connor. Our theme music is composed by me, Lacey Mosley. Cover on photo is Robin Von Swank. You can follow the show at Scam Goddess Pod on Instagram, TikTok.

• 43:58Laci Mosley?

  If you've been scammed, pulled a scam, or saw a scam, send us an email at [email protected] to tell us all about it. Don't forget to like and subscribe and tell a friend.

• 44:11Speaker 07

  Hola a todos. Soy Jamie Lynn Sigler. Cuando me diagnosticaron, tenía veintitantos años y todo mi mundo cambió por completo. Pero con el tiempo decidí que no iba a permitir que eso frenara mi vida. Quise tomar las riendas y después de hablar con mi médico sobre mis opciones, la elección para mí fue obvia. Boom. So is Kysimta. Obtenga más información sobre Kysimta o Fotumamab en kysimta.com. Okay. Laundry stinks, literally. I mean, you could just keep buying new underwear. Not that I've ever done that. Or maybe sort your clothes into piles based on how re-wearable or filthy they are?

• 44:54Speaker 07

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