107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
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Victor Kaudo walks through the thick, isolated Shakahola forest in Kenya with a group of men.

Soft brown dirt absorbs the sound of their footsteps. They're trying to keep a low profile as they duck behind the low trees. Each one of them holds their breath in anticipation and fear. Victor is the head of the Human Rights Center in Malindi, Kenya. So he's seen his fair share of suffering, but what he's looking for in the Shakahola forest is worse than anything he's ever encountered.

See, several people had visited Victor recently with shocking rumors about a church gone very sideways out here in the wilderness. They said it's become a cult. Victor took these concerns to the local police, but they claimed they couldn't do anything without hard evidence.

So now, Victor is here in the forest himself with a few other men, not knowing what they would find, but fearing the worst. Some of the men actually had relatives disappear in recent months, and now they're filled with a mix of hope and dread that they'll find them here.

This forest, by the way, is huge. Over 800 acres of low, sparse trees, and it's really isolated. The closest city, Malindi, is a two and a half hour drive down a dirt road. No one is stumbling upon this place accidentally.

Everyone in Victor's group is moving cautiously when all of a sudden he sees something in the distance. It's a guard walking back and forth like he's patrolling a perimeter. And there's a long, sharp machete in one hand caked in dark red stains. To his left is another guard and then another, all holding machetes, ready to fight whoever was trying to get in.

Or maybe out. They must be close to the compound, Victor thinks, and he keeps slowly picking his way through the brush. And just then, he hears something. Someone struggling. The group makes their way towards the sound when they see someone very small.

It's a boy, around 10, tied to a tree with a thick rope. He's using his frail arms to try and free himself, but it's not working. The first thing that shocks the men is the state that the boy is in. He's only wearing a dirty pair of pants. His bare torso is so emaciated that his entire rib cage is visible, and collarbones poke out by his neck.

Two of the men actually break down crying when they see the boy, not because they've saved him, but because they recognize him. He's their cousin, one that disappeared recently after his mother had them join a new church. So they all rush to free him. The boy whispers hysterically, "Hurry, today is my wedding day."

"'Wedding day?' they ask. "'You're going to be married?' But the boy shakes his head frantically. "'Around here, wedding doesn't mean marriage. It means something far worse.' "'Where are your siblings?' one of the men asks. The boy just points to a pile of dirt nearby, and dread washes over Victor as he realizes what it is. A fresh grave."

He gazes out into the thick stretch of trees all around. Whatever is out there, he's in way over his head.

Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. As always, I'm your host, Kayla Moore. Today's episode is about one of the most shocking modern cults of our time. I seriously think this one is going to be in the history books, you guys, up there with Heaven's Gate and Jonestown. And I'm glad that we get to tell you this story coming straight from the testimonies of the people who survived and the one man who helped shut it all down.

But before we dive in, I wanted to shout out our listener, Eric, who reached out to me and said that he's a therapist who specializes in people leaving high control groups. That is a very darkly curious job, but a very important one at that.

Seriously, I love this community. I am so glad that I have everyone here with me in the Rogue Detecting Society every week. And remember, if you want even more Heart Starts Pounding, you can join on Patreon or subscribe on Apple Podcasts for just $5 a month. And both platforms currently have free trials so you can get a taste of all the amazing bonus episodes chosen by the community. This month's bonus episode, selected by our Patreon High Council tier, is about abandoned platforms.

places, ghost towns, and more. And I must say, it's honestly one of my favorites. All right, let's get to it. And as always, listener discretion is advised.

Victor quickly realized he was going to need more than just a few men, so they grabbed the boy and took him back to Malindi. Victor went straight to the police and told them exactly what the boy had told him, that he was denied food by his parents because the leader of this group said he would meet Jesus that way. The boy also told Victor what wedding day meant. It was when their leader selected someone to be murdered.

After some back and forth, the police finally decided Victor brought them enough evidence for them to go inspect Shakahola, and Victor came with them and acted as their guide. But this time, the armed group didn't sneak in through the brush. They walked right in through the main road, down that stretch of dirt, right past the machete-wielding guards, onto the compound where the church was living.

They didn't necessarily know what to expect, but at first they saw a bunch of terribly built mud huts and what they found inside would be etched into Victor's brain forever.

Dozens of people crowded together in varying states of starvation. Some people tried to run when they saw the police, but they were too weak to move. Others were too tired from malnutrition to even form complete sentences. And worse yet,

They protested when Victor and the officers tried to help them up. They swatted their hands away, saying that they were on a journey to meet Jesus and they didn't want to be interrupted. Their leader had told them that if they stayed strong, if they didn't eat until they wasted away, they would meet the Lord.

They wanted to be left alone and allowed to die. But Victor and the officers didn't listen. He knew that these people had been brainwashed and he worked to evacuate all 34 survivors he found to a hospital. But four people were so far gone that they didn't even survive the trip.

And as investigators continued exploring the property, they realized that there were these piles of disturbed earth everywhere. Some small, some big. They began to poke around and it wasn't long before they started seeing body parts. Victor actually noticed that some of the bodies inside these disturbed piles of dirt

looked like they had been opened and stitched back up as if someone had stolen their organs. See, the property was covered in shallow graves. Something truly heinous must have happened here. The authorities put out requests for more personnel and supplies to begin exhumation and forensic testing. But one of the officers pointed out in the distance,

"What's that?" he asked. There, amongst the decaying huts filled with emaciated followers, amongst the shallow graves was a house, a nice house, one with a grass-thatched roof and a solar panel.

Compared to the other primitive mud huts nearby, this looked like the height of luxury. The officers made their way over and knocked on the door, but no one answered, so they just let themselves inside. And inside was even more of a stark contrast to the horrors on the compound. See, the solar panel ran a refrigerator filled to the brim with fresh bread, milk, other forms of sustenance,

Clearly, not everyone on the property was suffering. Eventually, investigators learned that this was the home of the leader. The leader that was telling everyone it was noble to starve. The man who was responsible for the over 400 bodies that were buried outside, Paul McKenzie.

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Paul McKenzie was always in touch with his spirituality. He grew up in an evangelical Christian Kenyan household, and he loved attending church as a child. Church provided him an opportunity to be the center of attention and get up on stage and flex his charisma in front of a big crowd. It started with him singing in the choir, and eventually he started delivering guest sermons. But Paul was no angel.

See, Paul McKenzie's brothers remember his short temper and how it could result in unpredictable violence. He would get up on stage and preach about undying love from the creator. But when McKenzie got angry, he would lash out and use violence on whoever was closest. When he grew up, McKenzie sold goods on the street and drove a taxi. But his dream was to be an evangelical preacher.

And I will note here that evangelicalism in Kenya functions differently than in some other countries. In Kenya, evangelical is just a term that refers to a church that's centered around the, quote, personal enterprise of the pastor. And that's according to Wandia Njoya, who's a scholar based out of Nairobi.

She's written a lot about religion in Kenya, and she goes on to say that there, evangelical pastors tend to have unchecked power and alpha male values. Evangelical Christianity in Kenya is somewhat modeled after American televangelists. So think preaching styles that lean into showmanship with devils.

animated physical sermonizing and an emphasis on dramatic spiritual demonstrations like exorcisms.

And it was this blend of unlimited power and flamboyant showmanship that really interested Mackenzie. That's why he wanted to become a pastor. And in his late 20s, when he started preaching on the side at a local church, he started to gain his own little following. In 2003, at the age of 30, Mackenzie founded his own church, the Good News International Ministry.

The church started in the home of one of his supporters, but it wasn't long before that supporter accused him of pocketing donations from the church for his own use. And Mackenzie's response? Well, he wouldn't tolerate anything but complete submission, so he told his other followers that the supporter who accused him of stealing was a witch, and he moved out of the house to build himself a larger church—

Now, he was the sole authority. With Good News International in its new home, everything got bigger. The size of Mackenzie's following, the grandiosity of his preaching. Mackenzie was really proving himself as a preacher. And as a result, people started flocking to his church. But it wasn't just his charisma that won him over. He also proved himself by performing miracles.

So if you were to attend one of his sermons at this time, you would find him exercising demons out of afflicted followers. You'd see him lay his hands on men who couldn't walk, only to watch as they rose up on their two legs. You would see him stop a seizure in its tracks. And it was these healing miracles that really catapulted him into stardom.

Halua Yaw was a 50-year-old local entrepreneur in Malindi, and she heard about Mackenzie's ability to heal the sick.

She had an eight-year-old granddaughter who had this mysterious illness that prevented her from properly digesting food. And Yaa had taken her to all sorts of doctors and hospitals over the course of two years, but nothing seemed to help. The poor girl could hardly eat and she was rapidly losing weight. So Yaa was desperate for a cure, anything that could help her granddaughter.

So she decided to attend a healing crusade that Good News International was hosting. And a crusade is a religious festival that can go on for several days.

Yaa walked in to see a big stage where Mackenzie was preaching to a massive crowd through a microphone. There was so much electricity in the room as people watched, and Yaa could tell that others brought their sick loved ones to be healed as well. Up on stage, a young girl joined the preacher, and then she began shaking violently. Her eyes rolled back into her head. She was clearly having a seizure.

And the crowd got really quiet as Mackenzie walked over and leaned over the girl, looked up to the ceiling and pleaded for God's mercy. He put his hands on her head and shouted for God to be merciful. And the convulsions suddenly stopped.

The girl came to and looked out at the crowd, confused as to what happened, but not suffering anymore. And Yaa was watching this in total disbelief. She felt like she had just witnessed a miracle. She didn't really know who Mackenzie was yet, but she was sure that he could help her granddaughter. And after that moment, she was a devout follower of his.

Most of Mackenzie's followers actually had stories like Yaz. Maybe they weren't sold on Mackenzie's preaching style at first, but when they watched him heal the sick, when he held an old woman's hand and the pain in her joints stopped,

they were all in. A few people, however, were drawn to Mackenzie for a different reason. Like a man named Lucky Chancera, who joined Good News International around the same time that Yaa did. The church paid him for odd jobs and he got a kickback for recruiting new members. But he saw through Mackenzie's so-called miracles.

One day, he caught Mackenzie pulling a follower aside and they discussed what the healing would look like, how hard the person should shake while they faked a seizure. The whole thing was completely staged.

But that didn't really bother Lucky. The church was a business. After all, healings were what drove in more members, which meant more tithes, which meant more money for Mackenzie, and as a result, more money for Lucky. If people felt inspired and comforted, then there was no harm in a little theater, he thought, right?

Well, my dear listeners, this is where things can get really dangerous. Because his followers thought that he had a gift directly from God, they were more likely to believe whatever he told them. And Mackenzie really seized this opportunity to gain more control. And this is when his preaching starts to get really dark.

So Mackenzie claimed to receive orders directly from God about how his followers should live. And God, he said, wanted them to disconnect from modern institutions. Mackenzie forbade his followers from engaging with entertainment like television, sports, and music.

He warned them not to engage with modern medicine, including vaccines. He said that doctors served a different god than they did and could not be trusted.

He also said that governments, both in Kenya and abroad, were conspiring against the common man and must never be trusted. He insisted that schools only existed to brainwash children and pull money from hardworking people into the government.

He was making everyone effectively cut themselves off from society, especially any form of authority. There would be no teachers, no government, no doctors that could tell his followers what to do. Just him.

And McKenzie said that all of these external forces were "wicked influences" and that their presence indicated that the apocalypse was coming. And it's never good when the person who is telling you to isolate yourself from the real world is also telling you that the world is going to end soon. Throughout history, that has never worked out great.

But according to him, it was only a matter of time before all of humanity's sins caught up with them and they would suffer through the end of days.

There was a way to avoid this, of course. All his followers had to do was trust in his path of righteousness and never, ever question it. As long as they stopped watching television, avoided registering with the government, stayed away from doctors, and kept their children out of school, they would be saved.

The miracles would continue. They would be healed of all pain and suffering and the Lord would speak through Mackenzie.

And so, his followers agreed to do just that. By 2018, membership at Good News International was in the hundreds, and the church's popularity was growing in Malindi. Members included everyone from working class folks to higher-end professionals like flight attendants and even government employees, like from the government Mackenzie was telling them not to trust.

But at the end of 2019, Mackenzie abruptly closed his church in Malindi. And it's not exactly clear why he did this. According to some sources, they thought it had to do with Mackenzie's clashes with local law enforcement. Mackenzie had gotten in trouble over an unlicensed TV station broadcasting his sermons and for running an unsanctioned school out of the church.

Followers were shocked to learn that the church was closing, though. Mackenzie seemed to be at the height of his success, but he knew that he wanted to take the church to the next level, and he had an idea of how to do just that. See, Mackenzie began spending time in Shakahola, that isolated forest outside of Malindi where we opened the episode.

There, he bought 800 acres of farmland and invited his followers to join him on the property, offering to sell them parcels of land at heavily discounted rates. He compared Shakahola to their own holy land, saying that the isolated community was the best way to insulate themselves from the toxic forces of the outside world and survive the upcoming apocalypse.

And it's hard to convey just how strongly the church members believed that the apocalypse was coming and that Mackenzie was the only one who could save them. But hundreds of his followers left their careers and homes, sold everything they owned and donated the proceeds to the church just so they could move to Shakahola with him. For Yaa, it was about helping her family.

When Mackenzie sold the church, she was devastated. Her granddaughter was still pretty sick and she didn't know what they were going to do now. Yaa had been brainwashed to think doctors were evil bringers of the apocalypse. So being in close proximity to Mackenzie and his miraculous healing powers felt like the only way her granddaughter could get any better. So

Yaa sold her family's goat for about 50 American dollars, a significant sum for her family, and moved with her granddaughter to a plot of land out in the isolated forest. Yaa had really high hopes. This was supposed to be the promised land after all.

But when she got to the compound, it did not look like the promised land at all. Mackenzie had divided the land into these different villages, all which had biblical names. There was Judea, Bethlehem, Jericho, and Nazareth, but they all kind of looked the same. They were just rough mud huts with thatched or tarp roofs, usually grouped together.

Yaa was under the impression that she was buying her own land for her family to live on. She didn't think it was going to be this kind of communal living with zero privacy and barely a roof over her head.

But they just had to wait and see the whole vision come together, Mackenzie said. This would one day be heavenly and they would build it together. He would heal them. God would guide them and tell them what to do. They just needed to pray, he said. And so the followers did just that. Alone in the hot forest with not much else to do, they all prayed.

a ton, for a sign, for their community, for humanity, for the coming apocalypse. And then one day, Mackenzie came to them and told them that God had given him a direct order for everyone to follow, something he said that will bring them all closer to God.

His followers gathered around to hear what he had to say, eagerly awaiting the message that they had all been praying for. "All we have to do," he said, "is limit our food intake."

Yaw was standing towards the back of the group, so maybe Mackenzie didn't see the look of disbelief on her face. But this seemed wrong. Yaw didn't remember anything in the Bible about Jesus requiring followers to fast. It was always optional. But Mackenzie was really strong in his conviction, so she tried her best to follow the rules. And it was wrong.

really hard. She had her young granddaughter to worry about. And remember, Yop brought her granddaughter to Shakahola to fix her digestion. Fasting seemed a little counterintuitive, but what if this was the solution and Mackenzie was right? What if God was telling him the right thing for her to do?

Yaa found herself in this weird limbo where she vacillated between wanting to follow Mackenzie's directives and her instinct to keep her granddaughter fed. But she did it anyways, and when the fasting became too much, Yaa would sneak into the nearby village to purchase food.

Of course, she didn't want anyone to see her disobeying Mackenzie, so she would have to rush through building a fire, cooking the food, and then trying to eat it all and dispose of everything out of sight. And in spite of everything, the combination of intense prayer and sporadic fasting actually seemed to be helping Yaa's granddaughter. She was finally able to eat without vomiting, and she actually started gaining weight back.

Of course, this was probably because of a combination of factors, but for Yaa, she really saw this as a miracle. She was filled with this gratitude and this renowned faith in God.

And as a result, in Mackenzie, he was right. The fasting was working. It was bringing them closer to God and it was healing them. Some followers, though, were still having trouble seeing the purpose in all of this.

But any doubts Yaa had about what they were doing out in the forest were now gone. And then Yaa actually took her granddaughter out of Shakahola so that Yaa could return to her business in Malindi, but the two of them would commute back into the forest all the time for mass. And then...

In early 2020, the pandemic hit. And this is a really important moment in the history of this cult. Because after years of preaching about the end of the world, sometimes even saying it would be brought on by a virus, Mackenzie's prophecy appeared to be fulfilling itself. If any followers had questions about their leader's connection to God, his ability to heal, his predictions for the apocalypse,

Those were now gone. The coinciding of these events strengthened his grip on his followers, and it even brought new followers to the compound, people who wanted to isolate themselves to stay protected from the virus. Shacka Hola seemed like a great place to do just that, with a godly leader who would lead them all to salvation.

Because Yaa no longer had her hut in Shakahola, she and her granddaughter had to spend most of lockdown outside of the compound. But she eagerly awaited the time when she could go back. And so, in 2022, Yaa returned to Shakahola with two friends. They had all been experiencing some health troubles, and Yaa was really excited to show them Mackenzie's healing sessions. But when she arrived, she could...

not believe what she saw. When she originally left Shakahola at the end of 2019, it was a small community of people who fasted and prayed all day, who would sometimes listen to Mackenzie preach, and who could commute in and out for mass like she did when she moved back to Malindi. But this was not that.

No. Guards armed with heavy knives, machetes, and hammers prowled along the perimeter of the property. These were mostly men with leadership roles in the church, including Lucky Canzera, the man who noticed Mackenzie was staging all of the healings. Lucky and his family got to live on the property while Mackenzie paid him a good wage and provided food for them, even while the other followers couldn't eat.

Yaa noticed how different the entire vibe of the place was. Even though there were many more people living on the property now, it was even more quiet. Yaa also thought everyone looked really unhealthy at this point, even emaciated. This was beyond fasting. This was full-on starvation.

The first few days that Yaa was there, she and her friends received one small ration per day. But then they stopped getting food altogether.

And when Yaw listened to Mackenzie's preaching, it had a new, more urgent and frenzied tenor to it. Instead of making her feel inspired and calm, it was terrifying. He would carry on for hours, ranting and raving about the end of the world,

But he also had this terrible ultimatum. He claimed that the end of the world was only a few short months away. And he also said that he received a new edict from God about the path the Good News International followers had to follow to meet Jesus. There was only one way there. They had to starve to death.

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McKenzie went on to lay out a horrifying death flow chart of sorts. Children would be the first to, quote, go to sleep. Parents were encouraged to actively participate in denying their children food, and some parents protested, but McKenzie brushed off their concerns by saying, quote,

Let them die. Is there any problem? It's Jesus who gave you those children. After the children, Mackenzie wanted single adults to starve to death next, then mothers, then the elderly, then any other married adults, and then the church leadership before finally Mackenzie himself.

Yaa and her friends were petrified at this point. This was the final straw. They knew that they needed to leave, but when they went to the exit of the compound, the guards stuck out their machetes in front of them. No one was leaving this place unless it was in a body bag.

Over the next few days and weeks, they watched as the people commuting into the compound for mass were met with the same fate. When mass was over and they tried to leave, the guards would threaten them. Everyone on the compound was now trapped. Yaa didn't really know what to do. She wanted to leave and go see her granddaughter.

So she started watching the guards and she actually noticed that there was a time when they would take breaks. And whenever they would break, she would sneak into the forest and forage for wild fruit and slurp water from puddles on the ground.

anything she could do for sustenance. She knew if she made a run for it though, she could die in the forest. So she tried to keep as low of a profile as possible. Getting caught eating or trying to escape meant really severe punishment, like being tied up outside the huts, beaten, or even killed.

And life in Shokohola became a nonstop horror show. The suffering from days upon days of hunger was unbearable for followers. Yaa and her friends listened to the other followers cry out in pain and despair day and night. But even still, Mackenzie didn't think that death was coming fast enough for everyone.

Maybe he didn't realize that starving takes weeks and his followers were stealing berries from the forest when they could, which was making it so they didn't die. Mackenzie decided he would help speed up the process.

Sure, he could enforce starvation more strictly, but that was still gonna take a while. No. He decided he needed to take matters into his own hands. And that's when he came up with a ritual that the cult could use. So,

He would single out certain believers for what he called their wedding day. Calling it a wedding day makes it seem like a joyous celebration. And honestly, for Mackenzie, it probably was. But on a follower's wedding day, a guard would strangle them to death. Sometimes beforehand, they were tied to a tree as part of the ritual, like the boy was at the beginning of the story, but the follower was ultimately killed.

But after the follower was killed, Mackenzie expected the other followers to rejoice. See, according to him, that believer had gone to meet Jesus so everyone should be happy.

And so, Yaa, who bore witness to a lot of these events, had to stand there and throw her hands in the air in fake praise of what was happening. But in reality, she and many of the other followers were repulsed and terrified by this violence. But Yaa kept reminding herself, "Keep a low profile. We'll figure something out." But that all changed one day when her friend approached her.

See, she had been violently attacked by one of the guards. She hadn't done anything wrong. The guards were just on a power trip, brutalizing people, especially women, whenever they wanted to. And this was Yaa's breaking point. She knew that she had to get herself and her friends to safety or else they were all going to die there. So the three women began making concrete plans to escape.

They were already tracking the guards' movements in order to sneak into the forest for food, and now they were watching for the right time to just make a break for it. It didn't matter that there were jaguars in the forest, that they were so weak they wondered how far they could run before collapsing. This was going to be their only chance.

So one day, they watched as one of the young male guards walked the perimeter of the compound. It was almost time for his break and Yaa was watching him like a hawk. She started balling her fists and planting her feet, readying her stance, when all of a sudden he looked directly at her.

The two made eye contact and Yaw stayed still, like a rabbit hoping to not be seen. Apparently, he decided that she wasn't a threat because he turned around and he walked down a path towards Mackenzie's house.

When he was finally out of sight, Yaa and her friends slipped into the forest like they often did. But this time, once they were out of earshot from the settlement, they broke into a run. They moved through the thickest part of the forest where they thought it would be easiest to hide. It was only a matter of time before someone realized they were gone and came looking for them. What if the guard had told others it looked like Yaa was getting ready to make a break for it?

For four days, they wandered through the forest, staying out of sight during the day and walking at night,

It was a really tense journey. Yaa was constantly looking over her shoulder, half expecting to see the young guard charging towards her. And if he didn't get her, a big cat surely would. Yaa hugged her arms to her chest and she could feel every bone in her wrist and ribs. She knew that she was really easy prey for a lion or a leopard. The journey was long and they survived on berries that they could forage and water and puddles.

But one day, Yah saw a road, and they flagged down a good Samaritan who drove them to the next village over. The women wept when they were offered food and clean water for the first time in weeks.

And one of the first places that Yaa went when she was back in Malindi was the office of Victor Caudo, the head of the Human Rights Center. And she told him everything that was going on, the starvation, the murders, how her friend had been brutally assaulted. There was a little voice in the back of her head still that told her maybe Mackenzie would find out she snitched and he could send his men after her to kill her. But she pushed through and continued to relay her experience.

Now, Victor had already heard rumors of this place, so he decided to go visit it himself. And that's when he and his men found the boy tied to the tree. And actually, after the police searched the compound and found Paul's hut full of food, they arrested both him and the boy's parents for neglecting him.

And for a brief moment, it seemed like everything was going to be okay. Mackenzie was in custody. This should all be over, right? Well, the police claimed that they didn't have enough evidence to hold Mackenzie. They released him back into the forest and things were about to get a whole lot worse. See, when Mackenzie returned,

He accelerated his vision for mass death. He told his followers that the end of the world was actually now coming sooner than expected, in just a few weeks. That meant they all needed to die before then. Paul said that there was only one way for them to ensure their place with Jesus during the apocalypse. If they waited, their soul could face eternal damnation.

So McKenzie told the guards that they needed to up the amount of weddings that were being done. But he also told the guards that they too now needed to plan for their own deaths and the deaths of their families. McKenzie still pledged to go last though, in order to quote, "close the door."

And this new declaration brought about two very different reactions from everyone. For the believers, hastening their death was kind of a relief. They believed that they would see Jesus even sooner than expected. But for anyone hoping to hang on to their mortal life, this was now the end of the line.

If they wanted to survive, they were going to have to do something. And that was the case for Lucky Chan-Zera, Paul's longtime guard. So far, he and his family hadn't been at risk at all. They were well fed at the compounds, they had a place to live,

But things were different now. One of Mackenzie's deputies instructed Lucky to select one of his own children for sacrifice. And then the guards went around and told the followers that it was now forbidden that they even talk to each other.

For the followers that were still living in the mud huts on the settlement, the situation was even more desperate. Nima, who was a mother of three, had been kept on the property against her will for weeks at that point. She was actually pregnant with her fourth child, but she knew that there was no way a newborn would survive here with no doctors around and no access to food.

She didn't even know if she would be able to make enough breast milk to feed her baby because she had gone so long without food. But she was determined to protect her unborn child and get back to the kids that she left behind. And like Yaa, Nima made escape plans with other women that she trusted.

It was really tricky. The women had to plan in whispers. They were always checking for guards or believers who might rat them out for speaking to each other. And eventually, they dug a hole through a back wall of their mud hut, slid through it, and fled, filthy and emaciated, into the forest. Nieman described the trek back to civilization as harrowing.

All of the women were so weakened by hunger and they ran on pure adrenaline until they reached the same road that Yaa had come to. Back in Malindi, Victor and others actually pressured the police to raid Good News International again. If they didn't have enough evidence to hold Mackenzie like last time, they needed to enter the property and find something really fast.

But months went by before they could get through to anyone. The police just didn't seem interested enough in what was going on. Even though more and more family members of the followers were coming forward, begging the police to do something to save their loved ones. Finally, law enforcement caved and they decided to go back to Shakahola. And Victor once again went with them.

And as officers overran the settlement once more, they saw a scene that was even worse than what they came upon months prior. There were way more freshly dug graves, rows and rows of them spreading out into the forest. Followers were sprawled out around them waiting for their time to be buried.

The followers that were still alive could hardly move or talk. They were so malnourished and children cried out in hunger, but mothers had nothing to give them. And there at the center of it all was Mackenzie, looking as well-fed as ever. He didn't even put up a fight. He and a few of his closest allies surrendered themselves into custody immediately. They knew that this was the end of the line for them.

Officers started taking survivors out of the forest and back to Malindi, where a mob had actually begun vandalizing the old location of Good News International. Word was beginning to spread that most of the missing loved ones had died.

Relatives desperate for information about their missing family members overwhelmed the coroner's office in Malindi. As news of the tragedy went national, all of Kenya experienced waves of shock and grief. One Kenyan government official compared the tragedy in Shakahola to 9/11.

Autopsies on the remains of recovered found various causes of death, including malnutrition, blunt force trauma, strangulation and suffocation. And also in a shocking revelation, one insider estimated that about half of the bodies in custody were missing organs. And they speculated that they may have been harvested for sale.

No officials were willing to discuss that detail on the record, however. As of August 2024, authorities have exhumed 450 bodies from the site, and more remain in the ground. According to the Kenyan Red Cross, at least 600 people have been reported missing with ties to Good News International.

The authorities eventually rounded up Paul McKenzie and his accomplices, 94 of them. And they all maintain that they're not responsible for any of the deaths that happened. McKenzie denied withholding food or keeping anyone in Shaka Hola against their will. He also rejected any claims that he or his guards committed murder. If anyone died at Shaka Hola, he said, quote,

"Jesus did it himself. Nobody killed anybody. I did nothing." Paul McKenzie and his accomplices remain in custody on charges of murder, acts of terror, child cruelty, and torture related to the deaths of the people whose remains were discovered. During trial, prosecutors plan to show that McKenzie was not running a fringe religion, but an organized criminal operation.

McKenzie and his co-defendants have pleaded not guilty, and the trial appears to be ongoing. The public outcry for justice following this tragedy has been loud and sustained.

Devastated relatives blamed the government and local authorities for taking so long to act, especially when McKenzie had a history of illegal activity. As best we can tell, law enforcement received reports about Shakahola in late 2022, and McKenzie was not arrested until April 2023.

Reports by the Kenyan Senate and human rights groups confirmed that if local authorities had responded to the earlier reports, they could have prevented violence

many of the deaths. It seemed like most of the deaths did occur after the police investigated the compound the first time. As of September 2024, six detectives have been suspended for ignoring multiple warnings about Mackenzie's illegal activities. Halua Ya has returned home to Malindi. The two women who escaped Shakahola with her live on her property at Ya's insistence.

She feels responsible for these women after leading them to danger in the forest. And they all still have nightmares about their time there. Occasionally, they'll sleep in the same bed for comfort.

Lucky and his family were actually able to escape as well. He told his superiors that his family needed to leave temporarily to attend a wedding, and instead they all packed their bags and fled. Yaa says that her relationship with God remains an important part of her life, but she no longer seeks out any religious authorities to pray over her. She says, quote, I know my God.

And I find myself really inspired by Victor and Yaa in this story. Yaa knew something was wrong, and she trusted her gut. She left even though it was scary and she didn't know what would happen. And Victor kept pushing. He wouldn't take no for an answer. And because of that, there were at least some survivors in this story. And who knows what would have happened if the police never went back. So remember...

Be like Victor and Yaa and trust your instincts always. And I will meet you here next week where we're going to take another trip around the world. This time to Australia to check out some of the most haunted prisons on the planet. It's going to get very spooky and you're not going to want to miss it. And until next time, stay curious.

Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Amanda Olson is our associate producer. Additional research and writing by Hannah McIntosh. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Denlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com.