20.10.2026 16:20
Dan Mackenzie, the eldest son of cult leader Paul Mackenzie, who was found guilty of the deaths of 191 people in Kenya, said that his younger siblings had been forcibly starved until two weeks ago and that he reported his own grandmother to the police to save them.
According to BBC News, Dan Mackenzie, the 27-year-old eldest son of cult leader Paul Mackenzie, who was found guilty of killing 191 people, most of them children, in Kenya, said his younger siblings were still being starved until two weeks ago.
Dan Mackenzie said he reported the situation to the police, and that the police took eight children, including his five younger siblings, from their grandmother's house and placed them in a protection center. Speaking to BBC Newsday, Mackenzie said, "They were not given food for almost three days; they were forced to fast." The young man, who stated that he had to report family members who still believed in the doctrine, said, "I had to report my grandmother."
Paul Mackenzie was found guilty on Monday of killing 190 children and one adult who died of starvation in the Shakahola forest. Mackenzie, who declared himself a pastor, had ordered members of the doomsday cult to starve themselves and their children to "meet Jesus." In the case, 28 other cult officials were also found guilty of murder.
Dan Mackenzie, who initially defended his father, said he had difficulty understanding the accusations at first, but grasped the scale of the tragedy during the trial. Recalling that he too was starved as a child, Mackenzie said, "When I was 12, I was forced to fast for almost a week." Mackenzie also recalled that congregation members beat him for hours to make him attend services as a child.
The cult's doctrine banned education and regarded modern medicine as "demonic." "I dropped out of school at the age of seven," said Dan Mackenzie, who today works as a motorcycle taxi driver in the coastal city of Malindi, supporting both himself and his younger siblings. He said some people in the city are angry at him because of his father's crimes, while others accept him because he has moved away from that life. Mackenzie added that he hopes the verdict will bring some consolation to those who lost loved ones.
Judge Diana Mochache, who read the eight-hour verdict in Mombasa, stated that cult members saw Mackenzie as "Jesus's spokesman." The verdict noted that burial ceremonies held in the forest were referred to as "weddings" and celebrated on the grounds that the deceased were "married to Jesus."
Mackenzie, who was arrested after more than 400 bodies were found in shallow graves in the Shakahola forest in 2023, is also being tried in separate cases on charges of terrorism, radicalization, and depriving children of education.
Source: BBC