Heinous Beliefs — Season 2, Episode 1
"Shakahorror" — The Shakahola Massacre
We're back. After a six-month hiatus, Season 2 opens with one of the deadliest cult-related tragedies in modern history — and one still unfolding in a Mombasa courtroom right now.
Episode Summary
In April 2023, Kenyan police acting on a missing-persons report walked into a remote stretch of forest in Kilifi County and found people starving to death in the name of God. By the time the exhumations stopped, the official count stood at 429 bodies — nearly 200 of them children. The man behind it, self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie, had spent over two decades building toward this: from taxi driver to televangelist to the architect of a "fasting schedule" that sent children first, women second, and his own family last.
This episode traces Mackenzie's rise through Good News International Church, the doomsday theology he built on borrowed American evangelist teachings, the whistleblower warning that police ignored five months before the raid, the human toll behind the body count, and the extraordinary legal fight still playing out in 2026 — including a fresh set of deaths at Kwa Binzaro, and Kenya's first-ever domestic prosecution for crimes against humanity.
Content warning: This episode discusses starvation, child death, physical abuse, and psychological coercion in detail. Listener discretion advised.
In This Episode
- The taxi driver who became a televangelist — Mackenzie's early life and the founding of Good News International Church
- How William Branham's apocalyptic "End Time Message" theology got folded into Mackenzie's preaching
- The 2017 arrest, the death of his second wife, and the warning signs authorities let slide
- Why Kenya's regulatory gaps let unregistered churches like this flourish
- The November 2022 whistleblower post — and how police helped Mackenzie identify and pursue her instead of investigating
- The April 2023 raid and the death toll that climbed for months
- The organ-harvesting claims — and the later, disputed walk-back
- Victim and family accounts: the Ngala, Nyanje, Mwiti, Hamisi, and Thoya families
- The parallel case against pastor Ezekiel Odero of New Life Prayer Centre
- Global and domestic media reaction, and the public fury directed at Kenyan institutions
- Inside the ongoing 2026 trial across four Mombasa courts — murder, manslaughter, terrorism, and crimes-against-humanity charges
- Kwa Binzaro: the 52 additional deaths discovered in 2025, and testimony that Mackenzie kept directing followers to fast by phone from prison
- The defense's argument, and what's still legally unresolved
- Delayed burials, the fight over DNA identification, and Kenya's plan for a national memorial
- The 2025 Migori copycat case
Sources
Reporting and court documentation drawn from BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, Daily Nation, the Standard, K24TV, allAfrica, and official Kenyan court and Senate inquiry records. No fictionalized or unverified details — where facts remain contested (organ-harvesting claims, some secondhand survivor testimony), that ambiguity is flagged explicitly in the episode rather than resolved for you.
Resources & Support
If anything in this episode hit close to home, you're not alone. Please reach out.
- Kenya: Befrienders Kenya — free, confidential support by phone, SMS, and WhatsApp: +254 722 178 177. Kenya Red Cross crisis line: 1199. LVCT mental health support line: 1190 (free, 24/7 on Safaricom).
- International: Find a crisis center near you at findahelpline.com. In the US, call or text 988 anytime.
- Cult/high-control group recovery: International Cultic Studies Association — icsahome.com
Support the Show
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Heinous Beliefs is an independent podcast. All information is sourced from police reports, court documents, and credible journalism.