By Prudence Minayo
Gregory Dow is an American citizen who landed in Kenya in 2008 disguised as a Christian missionary. He later opened a children’s orphanage in the villages of the Rift valley region. At the orphanage he took advantage of young children and molested them.
After the details of his shocking activities were leaked, he sneaked back to America only to be arrested by the FBI following relentless effort of Margaret Ruto.
Here is the full story as told by WoK.
Gregory Dow in Kenya
Gregory Dow is a US Citizen who was based in Pennsylvania, Lancaster County. He later sold his farm located in East Hempfield Township and moved to Kenya together with his family, his wife Mary Rose and six children, in early 2008. He opened the ‘Dow Family Children’s Home’ in Boito village, Bomet county. He operated the children’s home for nearly a decade until September 2017 when he left the country after allegations of sexual abuse came to light. While living in Kenya, he still maintained connections in Pennsylvania, including keeping a bank account and renewing a commercial driving license twice. The children’s home also received donations from people and organizations in the United States including his local church known as LifeGate in Elizabethtown, Pa as reported by the New York Times.
Sexual allegations and fleeing the country
The 62 year old is said to have s3xu@lly molested at least 4 girls aged between 11 years and 14 years old from October 2013 to September 2017. The reports first came to the public eye through a US based Kenyan citizen known as Margaret Ruto who had returned back to Kenya to take care of her ailing mother-in-law. She then heard the information through a girl who had escaped from the orphanage. The victim narrated her painful and horrifying ordeal along other young girls were abused by the foreigner. After Mr. Dow realized that the information was now in the public, he packed his belongings and fled the country. The Kenyan police revealed that they missed arresting him at the airport in just a matter of minutes. This was not the first time Dow was involved in sexual crimes. In 1996 while in America, he pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, for which he received two years’ probation and was ordered to register as a sex offender for a decade.
Getting arrested and Sentenced
Dow thought that he had escaped the corridors of justice after fleeing to the United States only for the Kenyan government to inform the FBI of his criminal activities in the country. The FBI acted swiftly and charged him for his crimes. Gregory Dow pleaded guilty of committing the 4 accounts of s3xual acts and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on ‘engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places.’ His wife was also sentenced to a one year imprisonment in 2020.
