Families fear convicted Kenyan cult leader may cause more harm

The families of the children murdered by Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie fear he could keep spreading his message even after he is sentenced on Friday.

Stephen Mwiti, who lost all six of his children in the Shakahola Forest tragedy, is among those worried about the harm Mackenzie might still be able to do from behind bars.

Mackenzie is due to be sentenced for the murders of 190 children and an adult.

Prosecutors said Mackenzie ordered followers to starve themselves and their children to death to go to heaven before the world ​ended.

The case became one of the worst cult-related tragedies in recent history.

Mwiti said he hoped Mackenzie and his fellow defendants, including Mwiti's wife, who took the children into the forest in 2022, would be held in solitary confinement if they were jailed, so they could not influence other prisoners.

"Even if he were to be hanged, I will never see my children again," Mwiti, 48, said while visiting his son Samuel's grave in the coastal city of Malindi.

Mwiti’s son Samuel was about seven years old when the family entered the forest.

He was the only one of Mwiti's children whose remains could be identified, as by the time they were discovered, many of the victims' bodies were severely decomposed.

Officials were only able to confirm the identities of 26 of the more than 400 bodies recovered from the forest.

Mackenzie and 28 co-defendants were convicted last month of murder. They could face the death penalty, although Kenya has not executed anyone in decades.

Most of the defendants, including Mwiti's wife, denied the charges.

Mackenzie said he did not force anyone to starve, an argument that Mwiti said made no sense.

"Assuming the adults he had converted agreed to fast without being forced, what about the children? The post-mortem even revealed that ... Samuel died after being strangled. Was that also by will?" Mwiti said.

After Mackenzie was arrested, officials said his followers continued to promote his ideas.

Last year, authorities discovered dozens more bodies in a nearby village, which they linked to Mackenzie's cult.

‘All I have left’

Four years after he last saw his children, Mwiti is haunted by their absence.

"When I leave work and come across children, I get startled," Mwiti said. "At times, a child looks so much like one of my children that it shocks me."

Samuel is buried beneath a wooden cross at the local cemetery.

Mwiti held photographs of his children there, along with some of their former school uniforms that he had hoped to bury with them.

"These are all the memories I have left," he said.