A Kenyan court on Friday sentenced pastor Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison for the murders of 191 people, all but one of them children, who died after he ordered his followers to starve themselves so they could meet Jesus.
The High Court in Mombasa split the term evenly: 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 for direct homicide. The verdict covers fewer than half of the more than 400 deaths tied to his Good News International Church, and investigations into over 200 others are still open.
Justice Diana Kavedza ruled that Mackenzie carried primary criminal responsibility for moving his flock to an isolated site and telling them to fast until they died. She found that 183 victims starved and eight were killed directly, called the killings cold and calculated, and said the defendants showed no remorse.
In a hearing that ran more than eight hours, the judge described cases in which children were cut off from others and denied food as their parents watched.
Twenty-eight followers were tried alongside Mackenzie, among them guards who enforced the fasting orders and gravediggers who hid the bodies. The court convicted all 29 on Oct. 19. Assistant pastor Smart Mwakalama, with whom Mackenzie smiled and chatted through much of Friday's proceedings, received 160 years.
Appeal and families' anger
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Mackenzie and life terms for the others. In practice, Kenyan death sentences are served as life imprisonment, and the country has not carried out an execution since 1987.
Every defendant has 14 days to appeal. Lawrence Obonyo, who represents Mackenzie and several co-defendants, said he has already done so, arguing that terms of 160 to 200 years are life sentences in all but name and that the court sidestepped the constitution to impose them.
Relatives of the dead said the punishment fell short. Suleiman Ziro, who made a 75-mile trip to hear the sentence, lost his wife and six of his seven children in 2023 and has still not recovered their remains; he wants Mackenzie executed. Francis Wanje, a 62-year-old teacher whose two grandchildren died, also hoped for a death sentence and blamed officials for acting too slowly.
I really have great (anger) towards the authorities. If they had taken action, we would not be here today.
Francis Wanje, grandfather of two victims
Mackenzie's son, Dan, said he pitied his father but considered the outcome justice for the victims. He said he survived by defying his father's teachings, which often brought punishment. Five of his younger siblings were rescued and now live in a children's home.
How the graves were found
Authorities first began digging in the Shakahola forest near Kenya's coast in 2023, eventually pulling more than 400 bodies from shallow graves on the 800-acre Chakama Ranch in Kilifi County. Some of the emaciated victims had been thrown into latrines, and some had been buried alive.
Mackenzie was arrested in April 2023 after a rights group alerted authorities. The exhumations that followed yielded so many bodies that digging had to stop when local morgues filled. Kenya's national human rights commission put the toll at 429 in 2024.
Investigators say Mackenzie drove a taxi before founding his church in 2003. He was arrested on radicalization charges in 2017 and acquitted, then arrested again in 2019 over two child deaths at Shakahola and freed on bail. Police say authorities closed his church that year and he moved into the forest. The case has fueled demands for closer oversight of religious groups.
Mackenzie still faces terrorism and manslaughter charges over the other deaths, plus child abuse and torture charges in two more courts; he has denied the terrorism counts. Prosecutors also accuse him of directing, from detention, the deaths of 52 people in Kwa Binzaro, a village roughly 18 miles from Shakahola. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.
