In a chilling revelation, autopsies performed on the 30 exhumed bodies of the followers of controversial pastor Paul Mackenzie, leader of Good News International Church, revealed that four victims were murdered. Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor announced the findings on Tuesday, May 2, after conducting the examinations in Kilifi County, where the bodies were unearthed from the Shakahola forest.
The forensic investigation exposed that two of the murdered victims were children, with one suffering a fatal blow to the head by a blunt object, and the other brutally strangled. The remaining two victims, both adults, succumbed to asphyxia, a deliberate denial of oxygen.
Oduor provided distressing details of the evidence found during the autopsies: “We could clearly see rope marks on the neck of one of them. We have also recorded some broken bones in the neck. We are sure that this person, a child, was strangled to death. The results also revealed that two of the victims were smothered to death.”
Contrastingly, the autopsy report indicated that the majority of the victims, excluding six whose cause of death remained undetermined, perished from starvation. “Eight of them were male, and 22 were female. We did autopsies for 15 adults and nine children. There were six persons who we couldn’t determine for certain whether they were adults or not because of the level of decomposition,” Oduor explained.
The initial autopsy results of the first 10 bodies, released on Monday, May 1, found that seven died due to starvation. Additionally, the chief pathologist disclosed that two children experienced asphyxiation, as evidenced by the bluish discoloration of their fingernails, which is indicative of oxygen deprivation. “Bluish fingernails are an indication that when these people died they were not getting enough oxygen into the body. We are contemplating that maybe something happened to them to deny them oxygen, which may be suffocation,” Oduor stated.
These gruesome findings shed new light on the dark underbelly of the Shakahola cult and the disturbing crimes committed under the guidance of Pastor Paul Mackenzie.