Why was John McAfee on the run and what happened to him? All your questions about Netflix’s new documentary, Running With The Devil.
Running With The Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee is the latest fascinating true crime offering from Netflix. The documentary tells the mindboggling story of John McAfee, the founder of the $14 billion McAfee antivirus software company who went on the run after being accused of murdering his next-door neighbor.
When Gregory Faull died of a single gunshot wound to the head in his Belize beachside home in 2012, his eccentric neighbor John McAfee became the chief suspect in the crime. But despite maintaining his innocence, John went on the run from the police, convinced he was being hunted by multiple enemies including members of drug cartels and even the government.
Here we answer all your questions about John McAfee.
Who is John McAfee?
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John McAfee was the founder of the McAfee antivirus software company, but after making millions in the 1980s the playboy inventor spent a lot of his cash on drugs and women.
In 2008 John moved to Belize, a Caribbean country on the northeastern coast of Central America, where many people move to spend their retirement. However, it is claimed by journalist Jose Sanchez in the Netflix documentary that the government doesn’t keep a close eye on those moving to the country making it the “perfect place for those wanting to escape something in North America”.
Why was John McAfee on the run?
When John moved to Belize in 2008 he moved in next door to a man called Gregory Faull, but the pair soon ended up in a dispute. So when Gregory was found shot dead in 2012, John unsurprisingly became the prime suspect. But rather than cooperate with the police and go in for questioning, he went on the run to Guatemala.
Soon a bizarre game of cat and mouse began, with John taking on various strange disguises and pretend disabilities to avoid people recognizing him. He also took a film crew along, as well as security guards and the various women in his life like his former girlfriend Sam Herrera and later his wife Janice Dyson. John spent most of his time on the run living on a boat as he traveled the world, as well as paying people off to avoid being caught.
What happened to John McAfee?
Eventually, John returned to the US and it seemed the game of chase was over when the authorities seemingly lost interest in him, leaving him to even run for the Libertarian Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016.
But by 2019 John was on the run again, this time from the US government for tax evasion and insider trading. He was facing 30 years in jail and in October 2020, he was arrested in Barcelona. However, in a turn of events that no one saw coming, John was found dead in his prison cell on June 23, 2021, in an apparent suicide, just hours after Spanish courts ruled he was to be sent back to the US to face his charges.
Despite the fact his death was ruled as suicide, as the documentary comes to a close it is revealed that John had always maintained he would never take his own life. In the years leading up to his death, he has maintained that if he ever died and it looked like suicide then he would have been murdered.
John’s wife Janice also released a statement after his death, saying she’d spoken to him hours prior to him being found dead, and that he’d told her he loved her and that they’d made arrangements to speak that same evening.