Home · World · Oct 19 archive
Kenyan Cult Leader Guilty of Murdering 191 People, Mostly Children
Confirmed
In Short: A Kenyan court found Paul Mackenzie and 28 associates guilty of murder in the deaths of 191 people, including 190 children, in a starvation cult.
Paul Mackenzie, the leader of a doomsday cult, and 28 associates were found guilty of murder by a Kenyan court in Mombasa on Monday.
The court heard that Mackenzie, who claimed to be a pastor, had initiated and directed extreme fasting at his 800-acre ranch in Shakahola Forest, leading to the deaths of 191 people, all but one of them children.
Mackenzie and his Good News International Church organized a Christian doomsday sect where followers were ordered to starve themselves and their children to death, believing they would meet Jesus in heaven before the world ended.
The court rejected Mackenzie's defense that he did not force the victims to starve, noting that in some cases children were isolated and denied food while their parents watched.
The Shakahola tragedy, which began to emerge in March 2023, resulted in the discovery of more than 400 bodies in shallow graves, making it one of Kenya's deadliest cult-related disasters.
Francis Wanje, 62, lost eight family members, including two grandchildren, to the cult. He said the loss had been a heavy burden on his family, causing significant psychological problems.
Mackenzie and his associates were arrested in 2023 after receiving a tip-off. They pleaded not guilty to 191 counts of murder in 2024.
The court's judgment covered 191 deaths, while investigations into the other deaths are ongoing. Mackenzie and his associates face additional legal cases, including charges of terrorism, radicalization, and denying education to children.
Mackenzie is due to be sentenced on November 6, 2026, following the verdict.
The court heard that Mackenzie had planned the mass starvation in three phases: first children, then women and young men, and finally the remaining men.
Mackenzie's former head of security, Enos Amanya Ngala, initially faced charges but entered a plea deal and became a witness for the prosecution.
The court's decision marks the first time Mackenzie has faced a verdict on the most serious charges of murder, highlighting the severity of the cult's actions.
What's confirmed
- “It has been really a heavy thing (for) us as a family, and it has really taken us very far in terms of psychological problems,” the 62-year-old said.
- The self-proclaimed pastor and his Good News International Church organised a Christian doomsday sect in which they ordered followers to starve themselves and their children to death, so they could go to heaven before the world ended and “meet Jesus”.
What's still developing
- Hundreds of bodies have been discovered since 2023 at the cult base inland from the Kenyan beach resort of Malindi, in what became known as the "Shakahola Forest Massacre."
- Many were severely decomposed, and only 26 of them were able to be identified.
- Mackenzie, a former taxi driver, forbade cult members from sending their children to school and from going to hospital when they were ill, describing such institutions as satanic, some of his followers told Reuters for a 2023 article.
- The plight of his followers began to emerge in mid-March 2023, when a local man told police that his brother and wife had starved their children to death in the forest on Mackenzie’s orders.