The creator of the world's most popular antivirus, John McAfee, ended his eccentric life behind bars in the Brians 2 prison in Catalonia, accused of fraud and tax evasion. In the midst of a bureaucratic process to extradite him to the United States to respond to justice there, he appeared dead in his cell with a farewell note and many unresolved questions. Despite the massive media impact of his alleged suicide, his body has now been in a morgue in the city of Barcelona for seven months.
John McAfee's body remains in a Barcelona morgue
The business news website MarketWatch broke this news and it was confirmed by newspaper La Vanguardia, which added that the body remains in a refrigerated room of the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Catalonia, in the so-called City of Justice court complex in metropolitan Barcelona. But how is it that a person with his power has not yet been given a funeral? The main obstacle is the case still open over his alleged suicide: not all of the requested tests have yet been carried out.
John McAfee / Wikimedia Commons
The story is complicated by the fact that, after the tragic news of the IT magnate's death, his daughter and ex-wife became involved in a legal battle for the body, while a judge from the town of Martorell has been investigating the exact cause of death, which is currently considered to be suicide. The 75-year-old businessman was found dead on June 23rd in his cell in the Brians 2 prison, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, on the edge of Barcelona's metropolitan area. He had been in prison for less than a year, after being intercepted at the Barcelona El Prat airport in October 2020, when he tried to flee to Istanbul after the issuing of an arrest warrant by the United States, on accusations of fraud and tax evasion.
From a life of fame, to fugitive
John McAfee rose to fame in 1987 after creating the first commercial antivirus software, founding McAfee Associates, a company that he ended up selling to Intel Corp for $7.68 billion in 2010. A couple of years later, in 2012, police in Belize voiced their suspicions about the murder of American resident Gregory Faull in the Caribbean country, who had boasted of killing McAfee's dog.
It was at this time that the IT magnate first took flight from the law, leaving the US state of Tennessee, to travel through Bahamas, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, before finally landing in Spain. However, he was unable to flee, as a new indictment was filed against him by a US Attorney's Office in New York, who charged both him and his former bodyguard, Jimmy Gale Watson Jr., with conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering of cryptocurrencies. In fact, he was accused of failing to declaring taxes between 2014 and 2018, in addition to hiding assets such as a yacht, as reported by La Vanguardia. This led to a request to the Spanish authorities for his arrest and extradition.
Suicide, conspiracy and further incognitos
He was arrested and imprisoned in Catalonia, but while the wheels of bureaucracy were turning, McAfee died, apparently taking his own life rather than return to his home country. Since then, however, everything has been in the shadows and conspiracy theories about an alleged murder began to spread. In fact, Janice, his ex-wife, was one of the main proponents of this thesis, claiming that the suicide note attributed to the millionaire was false and that it was part of a plot to murder him.
Janice and John McAfee / Elcaso.com
However, the woman who was the businessman's wife has long since left the media spotlight. It was the lawyer of McAfee's daughter, Joy Athanasiou, who was hoping to resolve the case before the end of 2021 after negotiating with Javier Villalba, Janice's lawyer, but they were never able to contact her. According to MarketWatch, Athanasiou said, "As far as I know, they haven't done anything to his body... He's been there all these months," referring to the morgue where the body still remains. The daughter, Jen, requested cremation and transportation of her father's remains to the United States, but she eventually gave up her claims over the body to avoid delaying his funeral still further. His ex-wife, who divorced him in 2019, will eventually receive the remains of the former computer programmer who even tried to run for the US presidency on two occasions.