Authorities are grappling with troubling questions after a witness in the Shakahola massacre trial told a Mombasa court that he still believes his four missing children are alive despite DNA results and a postmortem identifying one of the recovered bodies as his daughter.
Appearing before the Mombasa High Court where Mackenzie and 29 others are facing charges over the deaths of 191 people on Wednesday, 44-year-old Antony Wyclif Muhoro delivered an emotional account of the agony he has endured since March 2023, when his wife vanished with their children after allegedly being drawn into the teachings of pastor Paul Mackenzie.
Muhoro told the court that DCI investigators informed him in September that DNA profiling had matched him to the remains of a seven-year-old girl exhumed from the Shakahola forest.
Prosecutors said both forensic analysis and a postmortem placed the likelihood that the child belonged to him and his wife, Millicent Oyayi Awour, at 99.99 percent.
Still, Muhoro insisted he cannot accept that any of his children are gone.
“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.”
Awour, rescued last year and later arrested, is being held at Shimo La Tewa Prison. Muhoro said she assured him that their children are safe, though she has not disclosed their location.
He recounted how his nightmare began when his wife left Nairobi claiming she was travelling to Siaya to care for her sick mother. Instead, he later learned, she was diverted to Malindi after Mackenzie’s followers warned her about supposed election-related chaos in the city.
Muhoro said he realised something was terribly wrong when he saw media reports linking Mackenzie to forced fasting among his followers including children. He filed a missing persons report at Makongeni Police Station.
About a week later, Malindi Sub-County Hospital contacted him after a rescued victim gave them his number. At the hospital, he found his wife weak, traumatised, and initially unable to speak.
When she regained strength, she told him she had left their children with a woman known only as Mama Nadia, who has never been found.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions presented seven witnesses on Wednesday, many of whom gave heartbreaking testimonies about losing relatives to the alleged cult as the trial continues.
