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Dan Mackenzie, 27, told the BBC that police rescued eight children, including his five younger siblings, from their grandmother’s house after he reported they had been denied food for nearly three days. The children were taken to a rescue centre for care following the intervention. Mackenzie, who once worked as a cameraman for his father’s church, said the younger siblings were still subject to the same fasting practices that led to the deaths of many in the cult. He expressed concern that the pattern had continued despite the high-profile case.
A court in Mombasa convicted Paul Mackenzie and 28 associates on October 19, 2026 of murdering 190 children and one adult, according to proceedings reported across multiple outlets including The Guardian and Al Jazeera. Justice Diana Mochache delivered the verdict after an eight-hour session, ruling that the group had operated a structured system to enforce starvation in the name of meeting Jesus. The defendants had denied the charges, claiming followers chose to fast voluntarily, but the court rejected that argument and set sentencing for November 6. Mackenzie’s followers viewed him as Jesus’s mouthpiece, the judge stated in her ruling.
The court heard how children were isolated and denied food while parents watched, with some beaten for resisting the fast, according to evidence presented by prosecutors. One co-accused described how those who resisted the directive to fast were forced toward heaven through kicks and blows. Medical treatment was portrayed as an instrument of Satan and education was forbidden under the cult’s doctrine, the proceedings established. The verdict covered only those victims who could be formally identified amid widespread decomposition of remains.
Kenyan authorities have recovered more than 400 bodies from shallow graves in Shakahola forest since the case emerged in 2023, with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights placing the overall death toll at 429. A senate inquiry and subsequent exhumations confirmed that nearly half the victims were children, some only weeks old with hands and feet bound. Forensic reports cited starvation, asphyxia and blunt force trauma as primary causes in many cases. Investigations into additional deaths continue separately from the 191 counts addressed in this verdict.
Mackenzie, a former taxi driver who founded the Good News International Church in 2003, had been arrested as early as 2017 on radicalisation charges but was released and continued operating, according to a review by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. Followers from across Kenya moved to the remote 800-acre site in the forest starting around 2019, where armed guards enforced the fasting hierarchy that targeted children first. The preacher had preached apocalyptic sermons that labelled modern medicine evil and digital identity cards the mark of the devil. Several family members of victims, including Stephen Mwiti who lost all six children, welcomed the conviction outside court.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions described the verdict as momentous given the challenges of securing convictions on such counts, its director Renson Ingonga told reporters. Mackenzie and his co-accused still face separate charges related to terrorism, radicalisation and denial of education to children. Government officials have pursued additional perpetrators in lower tiers of the organisation while opening security roads in the forest to aid ongoing search and rescue operations.
