Carolyne Odour has told the BBC she desperately fears for the fate of her two young sons who went missing two months ago with their father - a follower of the teachings of a notorious starvation cult leader. Ms Odour says that amid an ongoing investigation into more deaths linked to the cult, she has identified her husband's body at a mortuary in the coastal town of Malindi. His corpse was found in July in the village of Kwa Binzaro, inland from Malindi and near the remote Shakahola Forest, where more than 400 bodies were found in 2023 in one of the worst ever cases of cult-related mass deaths.
Ms Odour is now awaiting the results of DNA tests being carried out on more than 30 recently unearthed bodies. I felt pain. I barely recognised him. His body was badly decomposing, Ms Odour, 40, said about her husband Samuel Owino Owoyo. She believes her sons, 12-year-old Daniel and nine-year-old Elijah, travelled with their 45-year-old father to Kwa Binzaro at the end of June.
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie is currently on trial over the so-called Shakahola Forest Massacre - and has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. He is alleged to have told his followers they would get to heaven more quickly if they stopped eating - and there have been concerns he has been in touch with his followers from jail. Ms Odour says her husband started listening to the teachings of Mr Mackenzie four or five years ago.
He changed and he didn't want the kids to go to school, she said. When the kids would fall ill he'd say that God would heal them. He really believed those teachings.
On June 28, the situation took a turn for the worse when her husband went off with their two youngest sons. He told me he was going to his home village [of birth], said Ms Odour. The last phone call we had he told me, 'We have gone, God be with you.' And I told him, 'Have a safe trip.' But Ms Odour started to get suspicious when he did not contact her again. She later found he had not gone to his parents' village in Homa Bay county, approximately 200km (125 miles) south of Mudulusia. Instead, he had travelled over 900km east to Kwa Binzaro in Kenya's Kilifi county.
A few weeks later, she received devastating news that her husband's body was in the Malindi mortuary. Identified during a police raid, he was found bound in bushes, reportedly having died by strangulation, indicating the brutalities tied to the cult. With disturbing revelations continuing to surface, the search for more bodies and the fate of her missing sons remain deeply agonizing for Ms Odour, who mourns the absence of her boys, wishing to see them in school uniforms once again.
Ms Odour is now awaiting the results of DNA tests being carried out on more than 30 recently unearthed bodies. I felt pain. I barely recognised him. His body was badly decomposing, Ms Odour, 40, said about her husband Samuel Owino Owoyo. She believes her sons, 12-year-old Daniel and nine-year-old Elijah, travelled with their 45-year-old father to Kwa Binzaro at the end of June.
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie is currently on trial over the so-called Shakahola Forest Massacre - and has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. He is alleged to have told his followers they would get to heaven more quickly if they stopped eating - and there have been concerns he has been in touch with his followers from jail. Ms Odour says her husband started listening to the teachings of Mr Mackenzie four or five years ago.
He changed and he didn't want the kids to go to school, she said. When the kids would fall ill he'd say that God would heal them. He really believed those teachings.
On June 28, the situation took a turn for the worse when her husband went off with their two youngest sons. He told me he was going to his home village [of birth], said Ms Odour. The last phone call we had he told me, 'We have gone, God be with you.' And I told him, 'Have a safe trip.' But Ms Odour started to get suspicious when he did not contact her again. She later found he had not gone to his parents' village in Homa Bay county, approximately 200km (125 miles) south of Mudulusia. Instead, he had travelled over 900km east to Kwa Binzaro in Kenya's Kilifi county.
A few weeks later, she received devastating news that her husband's body was in the Malindi mortuary. Identified during a police raid, he was found bound in bushes, reportedly having died by strangulation, indicating the brutalities tied to the cult. With disturbing revelations continuing to surface, the search for more bodies and the fate of her missing sons remain deeply agonizing for Ms Odour, who mourns the absence of her boys, wishing to see them in school uniforms once again.
