Did Sgt. Gregory Hayes kill two Syrian refugees? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

A post on social media claims that a retired US Army veteran name Sgt. Gregory Hayes is facing life imprisonment after killing two Syrian refugees who raped his 16 year old daughter.

The post typically comes attached to a photo of a man in a green t-shirt in a bar or pub. A redacted version of the post can be seen below.

This is retired US Army Sgt. Gregory Hayes. When Sgt. Hayes discovered his 16 year old daughter had been raped by two Syrian refugee brothers he took the law into his own hands…
Sgt. Hayes beat both men to death with his bare hands and now faces life in prison because of it. Show this American Hero your support and MAKE THIS POST GO VIRAL. Let the world know that We, The People stand with Sgt. Hayes.

The post has been spreading online since at least early 2016, and it is almost certainly fake. Incidents such as a double homicide would naturally attract plenty of reputable reports or public records, yet there is absolutely nothing available online that show an incident as described in this message as occurring.

Internet searches for the name Sgt. Gregory Hayes yield no results, either of the man himself or the crimes he had allegedly committed. In the number of years this has been circulating, no one has been able to provide a single reputable report matching the description above. Online searches of Sgt. Gregory Hayes’ name only show other instances of this rumour being posted online.


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Additionally we could find no records of two Syrian brothers entering the US and committing the crime described in the message.

As for the man in the photo, his identity his unconfirmed. Much older screenshots from 2012 suggest the man may be called Dennis, though we cannot confirm this.

This appears to be nothing more than a rather puerile attempt at stirring racial tensions directed towards refugees. We don’t recommend circulating such content without verification.

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