Paul Mackenzie Guilty: Kenya Cult Leader Convicted of 191 Murders

A Kenyan court has found cult leader Paul Mackenzie guilty of murdering 191 people, 190 of them children, in the Shakahola starvation case. High Court Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache delivered the verdict in Mombasa on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, after a judgment that ran more than eight hours. She also convicted 28 co-accused, and sentencing is set for Nov. 6.

The case is one of the deadliest cult-related tragedies in recent history. More than 400 bodies have been recovered from shallow graves in the Shakahola forest near Kenya’s coast since 2023.

What the court ruled in the Paul Mackenzie case

The judge rejected the defense argument that the victims, all but one of them children under 16, had chosen to fast to death. “I reject the defence by the accused persons that the victims, who were all below the age of 16 years, voluntarily fasted to death,” she said, Capital FM reported. She found that the prosecution had proved its case against all 29 accused for the murder of 190 children and one adult.

The BBC reported that the judge said Mackenzie’s followers saw him as “Jesus’s mouthpiece.” According to the judgment, burials in the forest were called “weddings,” and those who died “were celebrated as having wedded with Jesus.” One co-accused testified that Mackenzie said anyone who resisted the order to fast “must be forced to go to heaven through kicks and blows.”

Mackenzie’s former head of security, Enos Amanya Ngala, was initially charged but took a plea deal and testified for the prosecution, the BBC said. The defendants had pleaded not guilty and argued that nobody was forced to die.

Shakahola: how the deaths came to light

Mackenzie, a former taxi driver, founded the Good News International Church. Prosecutors say he and his church ran a doomsday sect that ordered followers to starve themselves and their children to reach heaven before the world ended, according to Reuters reporting published by The Guardian. Followers were barred from sending children to school or seeking hospital care.

• 2017: Police searched Mackenzie’s premises, putting him on authorities’ radar.
• 2019: Authorities shut his church, and he moved followers to the Shakahola forest in Kilifi County.
• March 2023: A local man told police that relatives had starved their children to death on Mackenzie’s orders.
• April 2023: Mackenzie was arrested again, and police began exhuming mass graves.
• Oct. 19, 2026: Murder convictions for Mackenzie and 28 others.

Only 26 of the more than 400 bodies recovered have been identified, The Guardian reported. Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights documented 448 deaths in a March 2024 report, and more than 600 people were reported missing, according to Capital FM. Autopsies linked the deaths to starvation, strangulation, head injuries and dehydration.

Families react to the verdict

Stephen Mwiti, 48, lost all six of his children to the cult, and his former wife was among those convicted. “I’m a happy man, that all persons have been convicted,” he told the BBC outside court. Francis Wanje, 62, who lost eight relatives including two grandchildren, told reporters before the ruling that the ordeal had caused his family deep psychological harm.

Kenyan President William Ruto said in 2023 that government agencies should have been able to prevent the deaths and that he took responsibility as president. The case has fueled calls for tougher oversight of churches and religious groups in Kenya.

Sentencing and other cases still ahead

The court ordered probation officers to prepare a separate pre-sentence report for each convict, due Oct. 30, followed by mitigation arguments. The court has received 68 victim impact statements, Capital FM said.

Mackenzie still faces other charges, including terrorism-related counts, which he denies. In April 2026, a court ruled that he and 95 co-accused had a case to answer on organized crime and radicalization charges. Prosecutors also allege that he directed the deaths of 52 people in Kwa Binzaro village, about 30 kilometers from Shakahola, while in detention. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.

The verdict comes as East Africa faces other crises, including the regional Ebola response covered in our report on Kenya’s Ebola case and the border standoff described in our report on Ethiopia-Eritrea tensions. For the wider health picture, see our coverage of the Congo Ebola outbreak.

Featured photo: Part of the Galana River at Shakahola, Kilifi County, Kenya, by Dasegrama16, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped; license). File photo.

Sources

• Capital FM: Court convicts all 29 Shakahola accused of murder, sets sentencing for November 6
• BBC News: Shakahola cult leader Paul Mackenzie guilty of 191 murder charges in Kenya
• The Guardian (Reuters): Kenyan starvation cult leader guilty of murder of 190 children and one adult
• AP: Leader of Kenyan doomsday cult that left more than 400 followers dead convicted of 191 murders