Kenyan Cult Leader Sentenced to 200 Years For Murder
A Kenyan cult leader was sentenced to 200 years in prison for murdering 190 children and an adult who were forced to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus. The sentence was giv… — by Sandra Rhodes
FaithTap · Nov 6, 2026 · 1 min read
By Sandra Rhodes (/journals/sandra-rhodes)
A Kenyan cult leader was sentenced to 200 years in prison for murdering 190 children and an adult who were forced to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus.
The sentence was given Friday in a Kenyan court.
Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, who was convicted in October, ordered his followers to stop eating. His aides enforced the edict, a court in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa heard during the trial.
Mackenzie received the longest sentence, but 28 other people were also convicted for their roles in the massacre. Most of the children who died were under 10 years old.
Mackenzie, a former taxi driver and small-time televangelist, was arrested in 2023. His arrest came after Kenyan authorities exhumed the bodies of more than 400 people who died in the preceding two years in the Shakahola Forest. This a remote area of southeastern Kenya near the Indian Ocean.
Prosecutors asked the court to sentence Mackenzie to death, but the judge, Lady Justice Diana Kavedza-Mochache, declined to do so.
“For persons who perceive death as deliverance, a death sentence may be perceived not as punishment, but as a triumph and a form of martyrdom,” she said. The judge noted Mackenzie had shown no remorse or empathy for his victims.
Mackenzie promoted his cult, which operated in Shakahola from about 2019 to 2023, as a sanctuary where followers could find refuge from the apocalypse, which he preached was fast approaching.
Parents who forced their children to fast were among those convicted alongside Mackenzie. They received sentences of 10 to 160 years.