OKLAHOMA
Examiner-Enterprise
By Kyle Schwab
The Oklahoman
(TNS)
A former Edmond missionary accused of sexually abusing Kenyan children testified Wednesday in his own defense, repeatedly telling jurors, “It didn’t happen.”
“They made me doubt my own memories,” Matthew Lane Durham testified about his accusers. “They made me feel contaminated.”
In a calm, clear voice, Durham looked directly at the jurors each time he spoke.
Durham, 20, is accused in Oklahoma City federal court of 17 counts of rape and molestation of eight children while on a mission in 2014 at an African orphanage. The trial could conclude Thursday.
Under questioning from his attorney Stephen Jones, Durham testified about a confrontational meeting on June 13 of last year where volunteers and orphanage founders accused him of sexually abusing some of the children. Durham told jurors that he didn’t know what he was being accused of at first, and he denied all allegations at that time.
He said Eunice Menja, a co-founder of Upendo Children’s Home, told him at the meeting that she believed an evil spirit or a multiple-personality was present in him.
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