Photo shows a palatial home in California, not cult leader’s residence in Kenya

This article is more than one year old.
Published on May 23, 2023 at 13:21
2 min read
By James OKONG'O, AFP Kenya

After news emerged of a Kenyan religious cult allegedly promising salvation through death by starvation, an image circulated online with a claim that it showed the leader’s home in the country’s coastal city of Mombasa. But the claim is false: the picture shows a mansion in Thousand Oaks, California, formerly owned by retired ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky.

“Inside Pastor Mackenzie Ksh. 500 Million House in Mombasa built by his Followers,” reads the headline from an article published by a Kenyan blog called “Wakenyaleo” (archived here).

Cult leader Paul Mackenzie is in police custody for his alleged involvement in the deaths of hundreds of his followers.

The article’s headline and images of Mackenzie and of his supposed house were then posted as a single screenshot to TikTok on April 26, 2023, where it has been shared more than 300 times.

Screenshot showing the false post, taken on May 19, 2023

The claim was also shared on Facebook in April.

Mackenzie, a cab driver-turned-preacher, is accused of inciting (archived here) his followers to fast to death “to meet Jesus.”

He has not yet been required to enter a plea (archived here) but a court ordered him on May 10, 2023, to be detained for three more weeks to enable authorities to conduct more investigations.

Kenyan investigators exhumed more than 200 bodies from shallow mass graves in the Shakahola forest outside the Kenyan coastal town of Malindi.

But the image shared in the post does not show Mackenzie’s house.

House in California

Using a reverse image search, AFP Fact Check found that the picture is from the United States, not Kenya.

The mansion can be found in Thousand Oaks in the state of California and once belonged to ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky (archived here).

Gretzky has sold the mansion twice (archived here). He first bought it in 2002 and sold it in 2007. He repurchased it in 2009 at an auction after the owner went bankrupt and sold it again in 2021.

A similar aerial image of the mansion was published by Business Insider in December 2012 and credited to Trulia (archived here) – an online real estate agency owned by the Zillow Group in the US.

Screenshot showing the Business Insider article

The mansion was also featured in a 2020 YouTube video by Luxury Homes.

It can be seen from above with Google Maps satellite imagery.

The Los Angeles Times reported that it contains two guesthouses, a six-bedroom main house, a swimming pool, a tennis court and an entertainment area surrounded by manicured gardens.

Born in Canada, Gretzky (archived here) is a former ice hockey player who is considered by many to have been the greatest player in the history of the National Hockey League.

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