November 3, 2025 • 13 mins
Four people found with ritual items near a politician's residence were beaten by villagers before police intervened, but the real mystery might be who orchestrated the entire scene.
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#WeirdDarkness #KenyaWitchcraft #PoliticalConspiracy #AfricanWitchcraft #MobJustice #SupernaturalBeliefs #TrueCrimeAfrica #WitchHunt #OccultPractices #EastAfrica
READ or SHARE: https://weirddarkness.com/kenya-witchcraft-raid/
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.
#WeirdDarkness #KenyaWitchcraft #PoliticalConspiracy #AfricanWitchcraft #MobJustice #SupernaturalBeliefs #TrueCrimeAfrica #WitchHunt #OccultPractices #EastAfrica
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird. Dark news. Late
October twenty twenty five brought something unusual to Kayasilla Village
in Kenya, an incident that sits at the intersection of
traditional beliefs and modern politics. Late one night, residents spotted
something that immediately set off alarm bells. Four people were
(00:35):
moving around near the home of Machako's county governor while
Vinen Nadetti, and they weren't just taking an evening stroll.
The group consisted of two women and two men, and
they were carrying small calabashes and wearing red clothing. In
that region, these items are strongly associated with witchcraft practices
in many parts of Kenya. These aren't just random objects,
(00:59):
they are specific tools that people believe are used in
rituals meant to harm others. The villagers didn't call the
police first and then waited around. They quickly moved in
and apprehended the four individuals, giving them no room to escape.
By the time law enforcement showed up, things had already
gotten violent. The four people had been beaten by the
(01:19):
crowd and were sitting on the ground with visible wounds
from the attack. Video footage from the scene captures something disturbing.
Someone can be heard telling the detained individuals to explain
what they're doing. That adds that someone has gone to
get a car tire. In some parts of Africa, a
tire placed around somebody and set on fire as a
(01:40):
form of mob execution called necklacing. The threat was clear
and terrifying. The police arrived before that could happen, but
the fact that it was even mentioned shows how seriously
the villagers took this. The legal situation is genuinely confusing,
and it goes back almost to one hundred years. Kenya
(02:02):
has something called the Witchcraft Act that's designed to protect
the public against people practicing witchcraft. Under this law, anybody
who presents themselves as a witch doctor capable of causing fear, annoyance,
or injury to another person, or who claims to exercise
any kind of supernatural power witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment intended
(02:23):
to cause such harm, can be found guilty of an
offense and face up to five years in prison. The
law itself contains a fundamental contradiction. The statute uses phrases
like so called witchcraft, which suggests the lawmakers weren't even
sure if they believed in it. The Act also uses
the word purported when talking about occult power and occult knowledge.
(02:47):
The law in essence punishes you for practicing something it
simultaneously suggests might not be real. It's like having a
law against capturing Bigfoot while also calling Bigfoot so called
and purported. The four people caught near the Governor's home,
this legal confusion meant something practical. They probably could not
(03:07):
be charged with witchcraft itself. The most likely charge would
be trespassing. The law does allow police to arrest people
for practicing witchcraft and take them to court, where they're
entitled to a fair hearing like any other accused person.
But proving someone actually practiced witchcraft is a different challenge
than proving they were somewhere they shouldn't have been. This
(03:29):
is where things take a turn that had many Kenyons
raising questions. Social media exploded with reactions that ranged from
genuine curiosity about witchcraft practices to outright suspicions that the
entire incident had been staged for political reasons. Multiple people
suggested online that a politician might have orchestrated the whole
(03:50):
thing to gain sympathy votes, with some speculating that the
four people caught might not have even known they were
supposedly involved in witchcraft, laid out the theory directly. The
whole scene with these individuals being caught near the governor's
residence at Moi Hills and then beaten by the mob,
looks staged. They might have been used without their knowledge,
(04:12):
perhaps because a politician needed sympathy votes. Consider the governor's situation.
At the time. Governor Lavinya Nadetti was dealing with threats
of impeachment from a local politician named Dominick Matha, who
serves as the MCA for Methwuanie Ward. By April twenty
twenty five, those whispers had grown loud enough that Nadetti
(04:33):
actually reached out to the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission herself,
asking them to investigate her administration thoroughly so she could
disprove what she called unfounded claims from her critics. The
timing raises questions a dramatic incident where someone appears to
be targeting the governor with witchcraft right when she's facing
political attacks, could shift public opinion in her favor. People
(04:58):
might think their governors being unfairly targeted by desperate opponents,
but proving it was staged would be almost as difficult
as proving those four people were actually casting spells. Machhaka's
county has been wrestling with witchcraft beliefs and practices for generations.
Back in the mid nineteen fifties, something remarkable happened in Machakos.
(05:20):
Close to one thousand people who were identified as Kamba
witches and witch doctors actually came forward in response to
requests from government officials. They agreed to surrender their ritual
paraphernalia so that it could be publicly burned, and they
renounced witchcraft in front of everyone. In exchange, the government
promised them amnesty and their neighbors agreed to give them
(05:41):
a fresh start. The whole campaign became known as the
Machakos witch Cleansings. That was seventy years ago, but the
beliefs haven't faded. Witchcraft still maintains a powerful hold in
many parts of Kenya, particularly in Machakos to see Ktui
and the coastal town. Even in Nairobi, which is obviously
(06:02):
a modern city, there has been an increase in the
number of witch doctors advertising their services with posters plastered
on streets throughout the city. Believing in witchcraft can turn deadly.
Human rights organizations in Kenya have documented something they call
the weaponization of the old colonial era anti witchcraft law.
People are using it to justify killing others as self defense,
(06:26):
claiming they were protecting themselves from witches. A research group
from Hokiyetu, a human rights organization based in Mombasa, verified
more than two hundred and fifty murderers between twenty twenty
and twenty twenty two just in Kenya's coastal counties alone.
That number represents real people being killed over accusations that
may or may not have any basis in reality. When
(06:50):
the police showed up, they took the four people into
custody and transported them to the station to begin investigating
their actions and what they intended to do. One of
the women was elderly and had trouble getting up and
climbing into the back of the police land cruiser. One
of the villagers actually helped her up. That small detail
is striking. Even after beating her, someone helped her into
(07:14):
the police vehicle. These situations exist in a strange space
where people can be violent and helpful. Almost simultaneously acting
on beliefs that are deeply ingrained but also deeply contradictory.
Without police intervention, those four people would very likely have
been killed. The mention of the tire makes that clear.
(07:35):
Mob justice in witchcraft cases is a well documented problem
in Kenya, where fear and anger can completely override any
sense of due process or legal procedure. Several things about
this incident don't quite add up, though, and people online
were quick to point that out. First, there is the
security issue. Multiple people on social media asked a reasonable question,
(07:58):
doesn't their home have secure? Governor de Debti isn't just
any resident, She's a government official, and her residence at
Mua Hills would presumably have some level of protection. How
did four people get close enough to be conducting a
ritual without security noticing? First, If they had security and
the four people got through anyway, that's concerning for different reasons.
(08:21):
If they didn't have security, that raises its own questions
about whether this was really seen as a serious threat.
Then there's an economic puzzle that surrounds many witchcraft accusations.
One person online observed, I wonder why witches are so
poor despite being able to bewitch money into their lives.
That's a good question. It's a darkly humorous observation, but
(08:44):
it does point to something real. If somebody truly does
have supernatural powers to harm others or change their fortunes,
why would they be in circumstances where they are vulnerable
to being caught and beaten by a mob. The four
people arrested didn't look like they were living lives of
supernatural success. The incident created a split in public opinion,
(09:06):
and that shows how divided people are on these issues.
Some people took a surprisingly progressive stance. One person argued,
why are they being beaten. They're conducting their own ritual.
If you called a pastor to pray the devil wouldn't
be beaten. He'd just be rebuked and sent to hell.
If someone has their religious freedom to pray to God,
why doesn't someone else have the freedom to perform their
(09:27):
own rituals, even if others find them disturbing. On the
other side, some people expressed genuine terror about what witchcraft
might be capable of doing, one commenting, absolutely, these witches
should be stopped. You work hard and diligently, but a
witch doesn't want you to succeed. They want you to fail. Lord,
have mercy on us. The things they do are beyond belief.
(09:51):
That comment reveals the real fear that drives these situations.
For people who truly believe in witchcraft's power, this isn't
about superstition or folklore. It's about genuine threats to their
well being, their livelihoods, their families. They see stopping witches
as self defense, not persecution. Were these four people genuinely
(10:13):
trying to harm the governor through supernatural means? Were they
innocent people set up as a part of a political scheme.
Were they there for some completely unrelated reason It just
happened to have had the wrong items with them. The
investigation that followed their arrest hasn't produced any public conclusions
that definitively answer those questions, at least not yet. Every
(10:35):
explanation seems both plausible and questionable at the same time.
If it was a setup, it was remarkably elaborate. You'd
need to find four people willing to participate, get them
near the governor's home with incriminating items, and somehow ensure
the villagers would discover them at just the right moment.
Politics in Kenya like politics anywhere has seen elaborate schemes before,
(10:59):
But who's going to agree to have the pulp beaten
out of them? If it was genuine witchcraft practice, why
choose such a public location near a heavily populated area
where discovery was almost inevitable. Practitioners of any kind of
secretive ritual tend to be more cautious about where they work.
If it was just coincidence, the timing with the governor's
(11:22):
political troubles seems remarkably unfortunate for all involved. The real
story here might not be about what happened that night,
but about what the incident reveals. Kenya is a country
where a law from nineteen twenty five, one hundred years
ago is still on the books, creating legal confusion. It's
a place where traditional beliefs remain powerful enough that a
(11:45):
mob will beat suspected, which is before calling authorities. It's
a nation where human rights organizations are documenting hundreds of
murders justified by supernatural accusations. At the same time, It's
a country where pea people debate these issues on social media,
where some defend religious freedom even for practices they don't
personally believe in, where conspiracy. Theories about political manipulation spread
(12:10):
just as fast as fear of witchcraft itself. The Kenya
Law Reform Commission has acknowledged that the Witchcraft Act needs
to be reviewed and brought in line with the current constitution.
The Act still references outdated administrative structures from before Kenya's
constitutional reforms, including district commissioners who no longer exist in
the same form. But updating a law is one thing,
(12:34):
Changing deeply held beliefs that have existed for generations is
something else. Entirely, until a majority of Kenyon's stop believing
in witchcraft's power to harm, these incidents will likely continue happening.
Caught in that strange space between traditional belief systems, colonial
era legislation, and modern democratic politics, the four people who
(12:56):
were beaten that night in Cayasila Village represent and something
a lot larger than just their individual case. They're caught
in competing forces, whether they're victims, perpetrators, or pawns. Their
story shows how complicated it can be when ancient fears
meet contemporary politics, and when the law itself can't quite
decide what's real and what isn't. If you'd like to
(13:21):
read this story for yourself or share the article with
a friend. You can read it on the Weird Darkness website.
I've placed a link to it in the episode description,
and you can find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange,
and more, including numerous stories that never make it to
the podcast, at Weirddarkness dot com, slash news
I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird. Dark news. Late
October twenty twenty five brought something unusual to Kayasilla Village
in Kenya, an incident that sits at the intersection of
traditional beliefs and modern politics. Late one night, residents spotted
something that immediately set off alarm bells. Four people were
(00:35):
moving around near the home of Machako's county governor while
Vinen Nadetti, and they weren't just taking an evening stroll.
The group consisted of two women and two men, and
they were carrying small calabashes and wearing red clothing. In
that region, these items are strongly associated with witchcraft practices
in many parts of Kenya. These aren't just random objects,
(00:59):
they are specific tools that people believe are used in
rituals meant to harm others. The villagers didn't call the
police first and then waited around. They quickly moved in
and apprehended the four individuals, giving them no room to escape.
By the time law enforcement showed up, things had already
gotten violent. The four people had been beaten by the
(01:19):
crowd and were sitting on the ground with visible wounds
from the attack. Video footage from the scene captures something disturbing.
Someone can be heard telling the detained individuals to explain
what they're doing. That adds that someone has gone to
get a car tire. In some parts of Africa, a
tire placed around somebody and set on fire as a
(01:40):
form of mob execution called necklacing. The threat was clear
and terrifying. The police arrived before that could happen, but
the fact that it was even mentioned shows how seriously
the villagers took this. The legal situation is genuinely confusing,
and it goes back almost to one hundred years. Kenya
(02:02):
has something called the Witchcraft Act that's designed to protect
the public against people practicing witchcraft. Under this law, anybody
who presents themselves as a witch doctor capable of causing fear, annoyance,
or injury to another person, or who claims to exercise
any kind of supernatural power witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment intended
(02:23):
to cause such harm, can be found guilty of an
offense and face up to five years in prison. The
law itself contains a fundamental contradiction. The statute uses phrases
like so called witchcraft, which suggests the lawmakers weren't even
sure if they believed in it. The Act also uses
the word purported when talking about occult power and occult knowledge.
(02:47):
The law in essence punishes you for practicing something it
simultaneously suggests might not be real. It's like having a
law against capturing Bigfoot while also calling Bigfoot so called
and purported. The four people caught near the Governor's home,
this legal confusion meant something practical. They probably could not
(03:07):
be charged with witchcraft itself. The most likely charge would
be trespassing. The law does allow police to arrest people
for practicing witchcraft and take them to court, where they're
entitled to a fair hearing like any other accused person.
But proving someone actually practiced witchcraft is a different challenge
than proving they were somewhere they shouldn't have been. This
(03:29):
is where things take a turn that had many Kenyons
raising questions. Social media exploded with reactions that ranged from
genuine curiosity about witchcraft practices to outright suspicions that the
entire incident had been staged for political reasons. Multiple people
suggested online that a politician might have orchestrated the whole
(03:50):
thing to gain sympathy votes, with some speculating that the
four people caught might not have even known they were
supposedly involved in witchcraft, laid out the theory directly. The
whole scene with these individuals being caught near the governor's
residence at Moi Hills and then beaten by the mob,
looks staged. They might have been used without their knowledge,
(04:12):
perhaps because a politician needed sympathy votes. Consider the governor's situation.
At the time. Governor Lavinya Nadetti was dealing with threats
of impeachment from a local politician named Dominick Matha, who
serves as the MCA for Methwuanie Ward. By April twenty
twenty five, those whispers had grown loud enough that Nadetti
(04:33):
actually reached out to the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission herself,
asking them to investigate her administration thoroughly so she could
disprove what she called unfounded claims from her critics. The
timing raises questions a dramatic incident where someone appears to
be targeting the governor with witchcraft right when she's facing
political attacks, could shift public opinion in her favor. People
(04:58):
might think their governors being unfairly targeted by desperate opponents,
but proving it was staged would be almost as difficult
as proving those four people were actually casting spells. Machhaka's
county has been wrestling with witchcraft beliefs and practices for generations.
Back in the mid nineteen fifties, something remarkable happened in Machakos.
(05:20):
Close to one thousand people who were identified as Kamba
witches and witch doctors actually came forward in response to
requests from government officials. They agreed to surrender their ritual
paraphernalia so that it could be publicly burned, and they
renounced witchcraft in front of everyone. In exchange, the government
promised them amnesty and their neighbors agreed to give them
(05:41):
a fresh start. The whole campaign became known as the
Machakos witch Cleansings. That was seventy years ago, but the
beliefs haven't faded. Witchcraft still maintains a powerful hold in
many parts of Kenya, particularly in Machakos to see Ktui
and the coastal town. Even in Nairobi, which is obviously
(06:02):
a modern city, there has been an increase in the
number of witch doctors advertising their services with posters plastered
on streets throughout the city. Believing in witchcraft can turn deadly.
Human rights organizations in Kenya have documented something they call
the weaponization of the old colonial era anti witchcraft law.
People are using it to justify killing others as self defense,
(06:26):
claiming they were protecting themselves from witches. A research group
from Hokiyetu, a human rights organization based in Mombasa, verified
more than two hundred and fifty murderers between twenty twenty
and twenty twenty two just in Kenya's coastal counties alone.
That number represents real people being killed over accusations that
may or may not have any basis in reality. When
(06:50):
the police showed up, they took the four people into
custody and transported them to the station to begin investigating
their actions and what they intended to do. One of
the women was elderly and had trouble getting up and
climbing into the back of the police land cruiser. One
of the villagers actually helped her up. That small detail
is striking. Even after beating her, someone helped her into
(07:14):
the police vehicle. These situations exist in a strange space
where people can be violent and helpful. Almost simultaneously acting
on beliefs that are deeply ingrained but also deeply contradictory.
Without police intervention, those four people would very likely have
been killed. The mention of the tire makes that clear.
(07:35):
Mob justice in witchcraft cases is a well documented problem
in Kenya, where fear and anger can completely override any
sense of due process or legal procedure. Several things about
this incident don't quite add up, though, and people online
were quick to point that out. First, there is the
security issue. Multiple people on social media asked a reasonable question,
(07:58):
doesn't their home have secure? Governor de Debti isn't just
any resident, She's a government official, and her residence at
Mua Hills would presumably have some level of protection. How
did four people get close enough to be conducting a
ritual without security noticing? First, If they had security and
the four people got through anyway, that's concerning for different reasons.
(08:21):
If they didn't have security, that raises its own questions
about whether this was really seen as a serious threat.
Then there's an economic puzzle that surrounds many witchcraft accusations.
One person online observed, I wonder why witches are so
poor despite being able to bewitch money into their lives.
That's a good question. It's a darkly humorous observation, but
(08:44):
it does point to something real. If somebody truly does
have supernatural powers to harm others or change their fortunes,
why would they be in circumstances where they are vulnerable
to being caught and beaten by a mob. The four
people arrested didn't look like they were living lives of
supernatural success. The incident created a split in public opinion,
(09:06):
and that shows how divided people are on these issues.
Some people took a surprisingly progressive stance. One person argued,
why are they being beaten. They're conducting their own ritual.
If you called a pastor to pray the devil wouldn't
be beaten. He'd just be rebuked and sent to hell.
If someone has their religious freedom to pray to God,
why doesn't someone else have the freedom to perform their
(09:27):
own rituals, even if others find them disturbing. On the
other side, some people expressed genuine terror about what witchcraft
might be capable of doing, one commenting, absolutely, these witches
should be stopped. You work hard and diligently, but a
witch doesn't want you to succeed. They want you to fail. Lord,
have mercy on us. The things they do are beyond belief.
(09:51):
That comment reveals the real fear that drives these situations.
For people who truly believe in witchcraft's power, this isn't
about superstition or folklore. It's about genuine threats to their
well being, their livelihoods, their families. They see stopping witches
as self defense, not persecution. Were these four people genuinely
(10:13):
trying to harm the governor through supernatural means? Were they
innocent people set up as a part of a political scheme.
Were they there for some completely unrelated reason It just
happened to have had the wrong items with them. The
investigation that followed their arrest hasn't produced any public conclusions
that definitively answer those questions, at least not yet. Every
(10:35):
explanation seems both plausible and questionable at the same time.
If it was a setup, it was remarkably elaborate. You'd
need to find four people willing to participate, get them
near the governor's home with incriminating items, and somehow ensure
the villagers would discover them at just the right moment.
Politics in Kenya like politics anywhere has seen elaborate schemes before,
(10:59):
But who's going to agree to have the pulp beaten
out of them? If it was genuine witchcraft practice, why
choose such a public location near a heavily populated area
where discovery was almost inevitable. Practitioners of any kind of
secretive ritual tend to be more cautious about where they work.
If it was just coincidence, the timing with the governor's
(11:22):
political troubles seems remarkably unfortunate for all involved. The real
story here might not be about what happened that night,
but about what the incident reveals. Kenya is a country
where a law from nineteen twenty five, one hundred years
ago is still on the books, creating legal confusion. It's
a place where traditional beliefs remain powerful enough that a
(11:45):
mob will beat suspected, which is before calling authorities. It's
a nation where human rights organizations are documenting hundreds of
murders justified by supernatural accusations. At the same time, It's
a country where pea people debate these issues on social media,
where some defend religious freedom even for practices they don't
personally believe in, where conspiracy. Theories about political manipulation spread
(12:10):
just as fast as fear of witchcraft itself. The Kenya
Law Reform Commission has acknowledged that the Witchcraft Act needs
to be reviewed and brought in line with the current constitution.
The Act still references outdated administrative structures from before Kenya's
constitutional reforms, including district commissioners who no longer exist in
the same form. But updating a law is one thing,
(12:34):
Changing deeply held beliefs that have existed for generations is
something else. Entirely, until a majority of Kenyon's stop believing
in witchcraft's power to harm, these incidents will likely continue happening.
Caught in that strange space between traditional belief systems, colonial
era legislation, and modern democratic politics, the four people who
(12:56):
were beaten that night in Cayasila Village represent and something
a lot larger than just their individual case. They're caught
in competing forces, whether they're victims, perpetrators, or pawns. Their
story shows how complicated it can be when ancient fears
meet contemporary politics, and when the law itself can't quite
decide what's real and what isn't. If you'd like to
(13:21):
read this story for yourself or share the article with
a friend. You can read it on the Weird Darkness website.
I've placed a link to it in the episode description,
and you can find more stories of the paranormal, true crime, strange,
and more, including numerous stories that never make it to
the podcast, at Weirddarkness dot com, slash news
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