Shakahola: Path to Tragedy - The Good News International Church

In this episode, host Kacey presents a deep-dive episode on Kenyan preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and the Shakahola Forest deaths.

WARNING of child deaths, starvation, and abuse. Born in 1973, Mackenzie founded Good News International Church after working as a hawker and taxi driver, broadcasting end-times messages that branded schools and hospitals satanic. He was repeatedly arrested from 2017–2019 and then moved followers into isolated forest settlements where residents were barred from mixing. During COVID-19, fasting escalated into a planned sequence of deaths, children first, with beatings, restraints, and reported sexual assaults; authorities ignored complaints until an April 2023 raid uncovered graves.

Postmortems cited starvation and killings by strangulation, suffocation, and blunt force; organ-harvesting claims were disputed and not charged. Exhumations exceeded 430 bodies amid hundreds missing, and further graves emerged at Kwa Mbinzaro. On 19 Oct 2026, a Mombasa High Court convicted Mackenzie and 28 followers of murdering 190 children and one adult, finding coercion, radicalisation, and that children cannot consent; appeals, sentencing, and additional cases remain pending.

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