Thinking it was his friend's car, he buckled up, and after some difficulty getting the car started, drove away.
He then went down to the police station to pay for a previous parking ticket, but when returning to the car the keys wouldn't open the door and he couldn't get in.
"I was really concerned that I had broken this woman's car. Like, the first time [I'd] ever driven anyone's car without them there and I broke her car right off the bat," he told CBC.
A local commissioner saw Freedman's struggle and offered to help as he had a Ford with the same key.
After wiggling his key around, the door unlocked and after 10 minutes of trying to start the car up Freedman was away.
He soon returned the car to his colleague, apologising for damaging her key and ignition.
For 21 years Kevin Freedman had been living with an open secret - he was a car thief, albeit an accidental one. Photo / University of Winnipeg
But a day later he noticed something strange - his colleague's car was still in the car park, leading him to think he damaged her car so badly she couldn't drive it.
"I said Jocelyne, I'm so sorry. What happened to your car? How come you left your car here last night? And she said 'I didn't leave my car here last night.' And it dawned on me finally, at that point, that it wasn't her car. And I said that wasn't your car? And she looked at me and her eyes bugged out and she said 'When you were gone yesterday somebody reported a car stolen.'
"I remember feeling panicked and a bit spooked about that because I was quite the goody-two-shoes ... So you can imagine that I was quite freaked out about this stolen car thing," McKie told CBC Sunday when confirming the tale.
The woman's car was found in the same spot she left it in and showed no sign of forced entry and nothing was stolen, so police dismissed the report.
Now, more than 21 years later, 38-year-old Freedman is trying to track down the woman he accidentally stole from.
"I always felt guilty about it. I felt horrible that I stole someone's car — accidentally, albeit — and I wanted to reach out to her in the beginning. I wanted to reach out to the police to let them know what happened [at the time] and I was talked out of it because it was pretty much, no harm no foul."
He says he'd love talk to the woman to hear the other side of the story.
