Oklahoma missionary found guilty of sexual offences in Kenya

A missionary from Oklahoma, who in 2014 served as a volunteer at Upendo Children’s Centre in Juja, Kenya has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for raping four children.

Matthew Lane Durham, 21, was found guilty of four counts including raping three girls and molesting a 12-year-old boy.

The pedophile arrived at Upendo Children’s home on April 30, 2014, for a three-month stint as a volunteer and is said to have committed the sexual assaults between May and June 2014.

“In a span of just 33 days,” prosecutors wrote, Durham “raped three girls — ages 5, 9 and 15 — at least eight times. During that same time period, he sexually molested a 12-year-old boy twice.”

A jury had in June found Durham guilty of seven counts but the presiding judge acquitted him on three of those counts on the grounds that prosecutors failed to make the case that Durham committed a sexual act with the children involved.

Josephine Wambugu, the home manager, was the one who discovered Durham’s peculiar behavior a month following his arrival.

“One night I went to check whether the girls had slept and I found Durham sleeping in one of the girls’ beds. I asked him what he was doing inside the girls’ dormitory but he did not respond. He just went to his room,” said Ms Wambugu.