{"id":675,"date":"2026-10-19T20:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T20:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=675"},"modified":"2026-10-19T20:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T20:00:24","slug":"kenya-shakahola-cult-leader-paul-mackenzie-guilty-191-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=675","title":{"rendered":"A DOOMSDAY PREACHER IS GUILTY OF 191 MURDERS! | Paul Mackenzie told parents to starve their kids to \u201cmeet Jesus.\u201d A Kenyan judge just called it what it was"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Justice finally walked out of the Shakahola forest. A Kenyan court has found doomsday preacher <strong>Paul Mackenzie<\/strong> guilty of murdering <strong>191 people<\/strong>, all but one of them children, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/ckd6d2l3dz4xo\">BBC<\/a> reported Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Mackenzie ordered his followers to starve their children to death so they could \u201cmeet Jesus.\u201d His sermons called education \u201cevil\u201d and modern medicine against the doctrine. <strong>Twenty-eight<\/strong> other cult leaders were convicted of murder alongside him. They all pleaded not guilty and kept insisting nobody was forced to die. The court didn\u2019t buy it.<\/p>\n<p>Justice <strong>Diana Mochache<\/strong> read an eight-hour judgment in Mombasa. She said followers saw Mackenzie as \u201cJesus\u2019s mouthpiece,\u201d and that in some cases children were isolated and denied food while their parents watched, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/oct\/19\/kenya-starvation-cult-leader-guilty-murder-190-children\">the Guardian<\/a> reported. Burials in the forest were called \u201cweddings.\u201d One co-accused testified that anyone who resisted the fast was to be \u201cforced to go to heaven through kicks and blows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The scale is staggering. More than <strong>400 bodies<\/strong> have been dug out of shallow graves since 2023, and only 26 have been identified. Monday\u2019s verdict covered 191 deaths; investigations into the rest continue. Stephen Mwiti, who lost all six of his children, told the BBC: \u201cI\u2019m a happy man, that all persons have been convicted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And here\u2019s the question that still stings: police searched Mackenzie\u2019s premises back in <strong>2017<\/strong>, and his church was shut in 2019 before he moved into the forest. Sentencing is set for <strong>Nov. 6<\/strong>, and he still faces separate terrorism and radicalisation cases.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/ckd6d2l3dz4xo\">BBC \u2014 Kenya cult leader who told parents to starve children guilty of 191 murders (Oct. 19, 2026)<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/oct\/19\/kenya-starvation-cult-leader-guilty-murder-190-children\">The Guardian \u2014 Kenyan starvation cult leader guilty of murder of 190 children and one adult (Oct. 19, 2026)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Mackenzie told parents to starve their kids to \u201cmeet Jesus.\u201d A Kenyan judge just called it what it was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bb-kenya-cult-verdict-1019.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}