Paul Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, was sentenced to 200 years in prison on Friday for the murders of 190 children and one adult. The sentence closes the main trial over the Shakahola Forest deaths in Kilifi County. A separate case over 52 more deaths remains before the court.
Justice Diana Kavedza read the sentence at the High Court in Mombasa. She said it comprised 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years for direct homicide. The court convicted Mackenzie earlier.
Paul Mackenzie sentenced to 200 years in prison over the Shakahola massacre that claimed 191 lives https://t.co/UDmIanhuBE
— Siasa Insider (@siasainsider) November 6, 2026
Paul Mackenzie sentenced after court found he ordered followers to fast until they died
Prosecutors said Mackenzie told followers to starve themselves, and their children, to reach heaven before the end of the world. Kavedza ruled that he oversaw a system that used religious teaching to compel followers to fast until death.
Mackenzie denied the charges. He said he did not force anyone to fast. The court rejected that defence.
The court found that the order to fast to death reached children first. Guards stopped them from escaping. They beat children who tried to run away or eat.
Mackenzie also told followers to shun education and healthcare. Kavedza said “medical treatment was presented as an instrument of Satan.”
Bodies came from graves and latrines in Shakahola Forest
Police began recovering bodies in Shakahola Forest, near the coastal town of Malindi, in April 2023. Some bodies lay in graves. Others lay in latrines. Some victims were buried alive, according to Reuters.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, a state body that monitors rights abuses, counts 448 bodies. The trial covered 190 children and one adult.
Families say the verdict brings relief
William Ponda Ngala lost his mother, his older brother and two nephews. “Finally, as a family, we can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that Mackenzie and all those who caused the deaths of my family members have been convicted,” he told the Associated Press after the conviction.
Stephen Mwiti, 48, lost six children. He said his wife, a convicted accomplice of Mackenzie, took the children to Shakahola, where they starved to death.
Prosecutors charged Mackenzie’s wife and dozens of followers
Police arrested Mackenzie in 2023 and charged him with murder alongside his wife and dozens of followers. The trial began that year. Some followers later gave evidence for the prosecution.
In May 2024, the High Court directed prosecutors to cut the murder charges to no more than 12 counts. The Court of Appeal overruled that. It held that the law sets no limit on the number of charges against one defendant, and prosecutors proceeded with 191 counts.
The toll ranks with Uganda in 2000 and Jonestown in 1978
Reuters reported that the toll compares with a doomsday cult that killed more than 700 people in Uganda in 2000. It also compares with the 1978 Jonestown massacre in Guyana, where a cult leader killed more than 900 people by ordering them to drink poison.
A second case over 52 deaths comes next
Prosecutors accuse Mackenzie of ordering the deaths of 52 people found in a village 30 kilometres from Shakahola. That brings the suspected total to 500. He pleaded not guilty. The court has not set a date in the material reviewed.
