Kenyan doomsday cult leader gets 200 years for starving 191 followers to death

A Kenyan judge has sentenced cult leader Paul Mackenzie to 200 years in prison for the starvation deaths of 191 people, 190 of them children, in the Shakahola forest massacre.

Justice Diana Kavedza of the High Court in Mombasa imposed 100 years for the starvation murders and a further 100 years for eight counts of direct homicide involving child victims, to run one after the other. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty; the judge declined, saying it would "foreclose the possibility of disengagement and rehabilitation" — and noting, according to Kenyans.co.ke, that a living convict might one day disclose where the missing children's remains are.

The court found Mackenzie, who led Good News International Ministries, bore primary responsibility for the settlement. He ordered followers to fast to death, targeted children first, and commanded violence against those who resisted or tried to escape. Witnesses testified he told followers they would enter heaven through "punches and kicks."

The sentence covers 191 of the dead. Kenyan officials have recovered more than 400 bodies from the Shakahola forest since Mackenzie's arrest in April 2023, after a rights group tipped off authorities, and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights put the toll at 429 in 2024. Mackenzie also faces separate charges over 52 more bodies found in a nearby village.

His 28 co-accused, convicted on Oct. 19, received sentences of 10 to 160 years, with most getting aggregate terms of 160 years. All except Mackenzie were ordered assessed for a government deradicalization and reintegration program. Convicts who have served a third or half of their terms may apply for review. His lawyer says he will appeal.

The massacre site sat in the open for years — a preacher running a ranch where hundreds fasted to death under a "structured hierarchy of death," as prosecutors put it, before anyone in authority asked what was happening in the forest.