After postmortems were conducted on May 2, government pathologist Johansen Oduor revealed that four of the Shakahola massacre were murdered.
The pathologist made the revelation after carrying out a postmortem exercise on 30 bodies exhumed from the 800-acre land in Shakahola Forest believed to have been the operating base of cult leader Paul Mackenzie and his Good News International church.
“For one of them, we could clearly see marks on the neck similar to those of someone who had been strangled with the breaking of some bones in the neck. We are certain that this person, who was a child, was actually strangulated.
“Two (others) had undergone smothering. This is where someone blocks your nose and mouth so that you are unable to breathe and you die,” stated the pathologist.
Oduor further noted that another child died after suffering blunt force trauma to the head. Oduor also pointed out that 20 of the bodies had signs of starvation.
Out of the 30 bodies, 8 were male while 22 were female and some of the bodies had gone through advanced decomposition and skeletonisation.
Activist Representation
When human rights organisations sought to have a representative present while the pathologists conducted the autopsies, Oduor maintained that the representative would be of no use inside the autopsy room.
“Autopsy is more of a forensic investigation and they might not have any role inside there. Other than being traumatised, I don’t think their role is really needed there,” he divulged.
According to the Kenya Red Cross, 360 people were reported missing in the Shakahola massacre, and over 100 bodies have since been exhumed.
The bodies were discovered in April and security teams have since been deployed to Kilifi County to find any survivors of the cult or exhume the bodies of victims.
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