Kenyan Cult Leader Sentenced to 200 Years for Shakahola Murders
Paul Mackenzie got 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 more for direct killings. His victims were 190 children and one adult.
A Kenyan court sentenced cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison on Friday for the murders of 191 people, including 190 children, in the Shakahola forest.
Justice Diana Kavedza handed down the sentence at the High Court in Mombasa. It runs as two 100-year terms, one for murder by starvation and one for direct homicide, served back to back.
Mackenzie led the Good News International Church. Prosecutors said he told his followers to starve themselves and their children to death to reach heaven before the end of the world.
The court convicted Mackenzie on October 19, along with 28 co-accused, on 191 counts of murder. The deaths happened between January 2021 and September 2023. The charges covered 183 counts of murder by starvation and eight counts of direct homicide.
The co-accused
The 28 others were sentenced too. Fifteen received 160 years each. Ten got 140 years. One more got 100 years. Two men who pleaded guilty to all 191 counts under plea deals received 10 years each.
Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty. The judge declined. She said a death sentence could strengthen the convicts’ belief that dying would reunite them with Jesus. Kenya has carried out no execution since 1987.
How the case came to light
Police began digging up bodies in Shakahola Forest in April 2023, near the coastal town of Malindi. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says 448 bodies were ultimately recovered from the forest.
Mackenzie is also accused of ordering the deaths of 52 people found at a separate site about 30 kilometres away. He has pleaded not guilty in that case. The suspected toll across both sites is 500.
Mackenzie founded the church in 2003. Authorities shut down his church in Malindi in 2019, and he moved his followers into the forest. He preached that the world would end in August 2023.
Justice Kavedza said the sentence was meant to serve retribution, denunciation and deterrence, given the scale of the deaths and the suffering of the victims’ families.
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