Twitter has been on fire over the last 24 hours with news that John McAfee, millionaire and founder of the popular security firm, is currently running from the police, accused of murdering his neighbor. Several users close to McAfee were tracking his whereabouts without giving an actual location, all reporting that McAfee is claiming his innocence, and that the police are actually out to kill him.
Marco Vidal, head of the national police force's Gang Suppression Unit, announced that McAfee is the prime suspect in the murder of American expatriate Gregory Faull. The 52-year-old man was found dead by his housekeeper lying face up in a pool of blood with an apparent gunshot wound on the upper rear part of his head. She discovered him in his San Pedro home on the island of Ambergris Caye on Saturday night.
According to a statement made by the police, there were no signs on a forced entry. A single luger brand 9-mm expended shell was found at the first set of stairs leading up to the upper flat of the building. Even more, both his laptop and iPhone were taken – possibly by whomever fired the shots.
Additional reports claim that Faull was a well-liked builder, but he had been "at odds" with McAfee for quite some time. Just recently Faull filed a formal complaint against McAfee, saying the security firm founder had fired off guns and "exhibited roguish behavior". The last reported incident supposedly involved McAfee's dogs.
McAfee has reportedly been somewhat "estranged" from his fellow expatriates, and his behavior has become "increasingly erratic" over the years. Some of his notable movements have included posting on a drug-focused Russian-hosted message board about purifying psychoactive drugs from compounds commercially available over the internet.
"I'm a huge fan of MDPV," he supposedly wrote under the alias stuffmonger. "I think it's the finest drug ever conceived, not just for the indescribable hypersexuality, but also for the smooth euphoria and mild comedown."
Despite his dark background – which is thoroughly covered to great depths by Jeff Wise at Gizmodo and followed-up by Fox News – McAfee told Wired in an exclusive interview that he's innocent, and that the Belizean police will kill him when they find him.
According to the report, the police scanned his property Sunday afternoon, looking for his whereabouts. He knew they were on the way but he never left the property – instead, the 67-year-old millionaire buried himself in the sand and placed a cardboard box over his head so that he could breathe. He called this makeshift hideout "extremely uncomfortable".
As of this writing, he's somewhere in the Central American nation where he moved in 2008 to retire. He claims that he knows nothing about the shooting other than he's the prime suspect due to the fact that they were neighbors and have had several reported disagreements. McAfee believes that whoever shot Faull was actually out to get him instead.
The killers got the wrong man, he claims, and now he's "spooked out" and in hiding. Even more, someone on Friday night poisoned (and killed) the very dogs Faull described in his last formal complaint to the town mayor. McAfee suspects the Belizean authorities played a hand in his dogs' brutal death.
"The coast guard dropped off a contingent of black-suited thugs at 10:30 tonight at the dock next door," McAfee wrote Wired in an e-mail Friday night. "They dispersed on the beach. A half hour later all of my dogs had been poisoned. Mellow, Lucky, Dipsy, and Guerrero have already died."
Naturally Vidal dismisses these accusations. "Absolutely no truth," he told Wired. "This guy amazes me every day. We don’t have anything personal against Mr. McAfee. There is no need for us to poison dogs."
McAfee isn't convinced the police aren't incapable of "silencing" him or his dogs. "Under no circumstances am I going to willingly talk to the police in this country,” he told Wired Monday afternoon. “You can say I’m paranoid about it but they will kill me, there is no question. They’ve been trying to get me for months. They want to silence me. I am not well liked by the prime minister. I am just a thorn in everybody’s side."
