John McAfee US antivirus software creator found dead in Spanish prison cell while fights extradition
John McAfee’s widow says he was not suicidal
Lawyer Javier Villalba, left and John McAfee’s wife Janice speak briefly with journalists on leaving the Brians 2 penitentiary center in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, near Barcelona, northeast Spain, Friday, June 25, 2021. A judge in northeastern Spain has ordered an autopsy for John McAfee, creator of the McAfee antivirus software, a gun-loving antivirus pioneer, cryptocurrency promoter and occasional politician who died in a cell pending extradition to the United States for allegedly evading millions in unpaid taxes. McAfee’s Spanish lawyer, Javier Villalba, said the entrepreneur’s death had come as a surprise to his wife and other relatives, since McAfee “had not said goodbye.”
The widow of John McAfee, the British-American tycoon who died in a Spanish prison this week while awaiting extradition to the United States, said Friday that her husband was not suicidal when she last spoke to him hours before he was found dead.
Authorities in Spain are conducting an autopsy on McAfee’s body but have said that everything at the scene in his cell indicated that the 75-year-old killed himself.
“His last words to me were ‘I love you and I will call you in the evening,’” Janice McAfee told reporters outside the Brians 2 penitentiary northwest of Barcelona where she recovered her late husband’s belongings.
The day before he was found dead, Spain’s National Court had announced that it was agreeing to his extradition to the U.S. but the decision was not final. “We had a plan of action already in place to appeal that decision,” the 38-year-old Janice McAfee told reporters. “I blame the U.S. authorities for this tragedy: Because of these politically motivated charges against him my husband is now dead.” Results of McAfee’s autopsy could take “days or weeks,” authorities have said.
The entrepreneur had not been connected with the companies that took over the antivirus software he built after he sold his shares in the 1990s. That early success had made McAfee rich and followed him in his troubled biography.
“Even though he was born in England, America was his home,” Janice McAfee said. “He came there when he was a child. He had his first girlfriend there, his first case, you know, his first job. He made his first millions there and he wanted to be there. But, you know, politics just wouldn’t allow for that to happen.”
