A Mombasa court found Paul Mackenzie and 29 associates guilty on Monday, October 19, 2026, for the murder of 190 children and one adult. The victims were members of the Good News International Church, a doomsday sect that prosecutors say was ordered to starve to death to reach heaven before the end of the world. Mackenzie, a former taxi driver who founded the ministry in 2003, denied the charges and argued he did not force followers to fast.
The case originated in April 2023 when police, acting on a tip-off from a rights group, began uncovering mass graves in the 800-acre Shakahola Forest in southeastern Kenya. Investigators eventually recovered more than 400 bodies from the site. While Mackenzie claimed he closed his church in 2019, authorities stated he relocated his followers to the forest, where they lived in makeshift shelters in areas given biblical names like Jerusalem and Judea.
During a hearing lasting more than eight hours, Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache detailed how children were isolated and denied food while their parents watched. Prosecutors alleged a "structured hierarchy of death" where children were instructed to die first, followed by women and then men. While many died of starvation, postmortem reports also indicated causes of death including asphyxia, neck compression, and traumatic head injury.
The ruling affects the families of the more than 400 people found dead in the Shakahola Forest, including relatives like Francis Wanje, who lost eight family members. The scale of the event involves at least 429 reported deaths according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, a figure that includes 191 victims covered by this specific murder trial and 52 others linked to a separate case in Kwa Binzaro village. The high number of unidentified remains—only 26 of the first 191 victims were identified—means many households continue to wait for forensic confirmation of their relatives' fates.
For Kenyans, this case has led to calls for stricter oversight of religious organizations in a country where faith is central to public life. The proceedings revealed that Mackenzie had been arrested in 2017 and 2019 for related activities but was released, prompting President William Ruto to state that government agencies should have prevented the deaths.
Legal proceedings against Mackenzie are not yet complete. While he and his associates have been convicted of murder, he still faces separate charges related to terrorism and manslaughter, which he has denied. Additionally, investigations into the remaining bodies recovered from the forest are ongoing. The court has not yet announced the sentencing date for the murder convictions.