MOMBASA, Kenya — A father whose four children disappeared in the Shakahola forest told the High Court on Wednesday that he believes they are still alive, despite DNA results and a postmortem confirming that one of the exhumed bodies matches his seven-year-old daughter.
Testifying in the ongoing trial of pastor Paul Mackenzie and 29 co-accused — charged over the deaths of 191 followers of the Good News International Church — 44-year-old Antony Wyclif Muhoro stunned the court by rejecting forensic findings presented by investigators and prosecutors.
Muhoro said officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) informed him in September that his DNA had been matched to the remains of a child recovered from the Shakahola forest.
Laboratory reports filed in court show a 99.99pc probability that the child was born to him and his wife, Millicent Oyayi Awour, who is among the accused persons.
But the father told Justice’s court that faith — not science — guides his conviction.
“Your Honour, I am a prayerful person. In my dreams, I have seen that all my children are alive,” he said. “My wife has also told me they are alive and asked me to visit her in prison so she can tell me where they are.”
Muhoro admitted he has been unable to visit the mortuary where the identified remains are being held, saying he has not accepted that his daughter is dead.
Prosecutor submissions confirmed both the DNA analysis and the postmortem report arrived at the same conclusion, strengthening the State’s case that the child died as a result of the cult-linked fasting doctrine that prosecutors say led to mass fatalities.
Awour, who is detained at Shimo La Tewa Prison, allegedly reassured her husband during a brief communication that the children were safe, though she refused to disclose their whereabouts. Investigators have never traced the woman she claimed to have entrusted the children to — a follower known only as Mama Nadia.
The court heard that the family’s ordeal began in March 2023, when Awour allegedly told Muhoro that followers of Mackenzie in Nairobi had been warned to flee the city due to fears of post-election violence.
She claimed she was travelling to Siaya to attend to her sick mother, but instead travelled to Malindi, where adherents were said to be converging under Mackenzie’s instructions.
Muhoro said he realised something was seriously wrong when he later saw news reports of Mackenzie’s arrest over allegations that children and adults had been forced to fast to death. He immediately reported his wife and children missing at Makongeni Police Station.
A week later, he was contacted by Malindi Sub-County Hospital, where a survivor had provided his phone number. There, he found his wife admitted and initially unable to speak. When she regained her voice, she claimed to have handed their children to Mama Nadia, who vanished without a trace.
Following the mass exhumations at Shakahola, investigators instructed Muhoro to undergo DNA profiling, leading to the now-contested identification.
The testimony adds another emotional turn to a trial that has exposed layers of alleged manipulation, extreme indoctrination and systemic failures by local authorities to detect warning signs.
Prosecutors maintain Mackenzie ran a structured cult that promoted starvation as a path to salvation, while defence teams argue that the deaths were the result of individual choices.
The trial resumes as families of the missing continue to press for answers, while the State faces ongoing scrutiny over its handling of the worst cult-related tragedy in Kenya’s recent history.
