21-year-old Dan Mackenzie, who is the firstborn son of controversial pastor Paul Mackenzie, on Sunday, May 7, narrated how his father left home to settle in the infamous Shakahola Forest.
According to Dan, his father quit preaching and closed his church in 2019 to take up farming in the troubled forest.
He revealed that the controversial pastor summoned him and told him that he was going to purchase a piece of land in Shakahola for farming purposes and (the son) had to stay behind to manage their Malindi Town home.
“He told me that he was going to purchase a piece of land at Shakahola and he was going farm it.
“I told him that I could not go with him because I am not a farmer. He said that it was okay for me to stay behind if I did not want to join him,” the son recalled.
Dan, as a result, was left behind with his stepmother, grandmother and father’s third wife who was in police custody.
“My father loves me. When he left, he told me that if I ever needed anything, he would provide for us. He often send us maize and tomatoes from there (Shakahola) and visited us periodically to monitor how we were doing,” he added.
Dan also defended his father over claims of radicalising his followers arguing that the believers were not forced to take up his father’s radical teaching including dropping out of school or fasting.
“All that is a lie because he did not go there with the congregants. He went there on his own because he wanted to become a farmer.
“My father had been a farmer for a long time since 2015. He had bought a piece of land in Kakuyuni and was farming it for about two years," he insisted
When his father left, Dan Mackenzie took up a job as a bodaboda rider to earn a living. Prior to that, he was a photographer at his father’s church.
Earlier on Friday, May 5, Mackenzie was denied bail after he failed to convince the Magistrate to set him free.
While seeking court orders to free them on a considerable bail, the Good News International Church Pastor claimed that police denied them food while behind bars adding that he was also subjected to torture.
By May 3, 360 people had been reported missing in the Shakahola massacre, and over 100 bodies had since been exhumed.
Government pathologist Johansen Oduor revealed on May 3, that four of the Shakahola massacre victims out of the 30 bodies exhumed were murdered.
