John McAfee, whose antivirus software is one of the most endemic software products in existence, was found dead in his Spanish prison cell on Wednesday, June 23, according to his lawyers.
The wealthy, especially those who became wealthy via a lightning strike of right-place-right-time, are a constant source of fascinating stories to the rest of us, but few are more bizarre than the story of John McAfee.
He wrote the first commercially available anti-virus software in 1987. Selling it via his company McAfee Associates, the software made him millions. He left the company in 1994 and soon became the company’s most vocal rival, calling his own product ‘bloatware’ and ‘the worst software on the planet.’ He ran for president twice, in 2016 and 2020, as a Libertarian with a focus on the newly evolving crypto-economy. He claims to have 47 children.
In 2012, he was arrested while living in Belize and his property searched over charges related to drug manufacturing and illegal weapons. His house would burn down shortly after, which he blamed on the Belizean government. Later the same year, Belize police investigated McAfee for the death of his neighbor Gregory Faull, who was shot several days after McAfee blamed him for poisoning his dogs. He fled the country. In 2019, he and several friends were arrested in the Dominican Republic, again for illegal weapons. In 2020, he claimed to have been arrested in Norway over refusing to wear a mask, but the photos he posted of the event showed German police and were apparently from an unsuccessful attempt to cross the closed German border from France.
In October 2020, McAfee, 75, was arrested in Spain on behalf of the US government over tax evasion. His extradition was confirmed by the Spanish National Court on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, he was found deceased in his cell. An autopsy has confirmed his death as a suicide by hanging.
John McAfee’s widow, Janice Dyson, 45, has implied that his death was at the hands of the U.S. government and posted a large Q to his Twitter account, likely in reference to the Qanon conspiracy theories.
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