One of the men credited with inventing antivirus software is on the run from murder charges, according to police in Belize.
John McAfee is the prime suspect in the murder of another American expatriate, Gregory Faull, who was shot once in the back of his head Saturday night in his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye, according to tech blog Gizmodo.
McAfee’s motive for allegedly killing Faull, a popular builder originally from California, is unclear, but just last week Faull filed a formal complaint with the mayor’s office against McAfee because the antivirus king wildly fired guns off and exhibited “roguish behavior.”
The murder charges against McAfee are the latest in a long line of strange stories about the former tech titan.
McAfee’s bizarre life came to the fore in 1992 when he sold his stake in the company he founded for $100 million and became a thrill-seeking adventurer.
After a series of bad business investments, including a yoga ashram in Colorado and an aerotrekking business in New Mexico, McAfee and some of his friends moved into a compound on Ambergris Caye, in Belize.
There McAfee and a partner claimed to be studying jungle herbs including one which they said boosted the female libido.
However, McAfee’s jungle herb studies floundered in 2010 whereupon he allegedly started posting on a Russian drug message board called Bluelight under the pseudonym “Stuffmonger” about his attempts to purify the drug MDPV.
The drug, commonly known as “bath salts,” made headlines in June after a homeless man in Miami allegedly took the drug before eating the face off of another homeless man.
“I’m a huge fan of MDPV,” McAfee wrote in one post, “I think it’s the finest drug ever conceived, not just for the indescribable hypersexualty, but also for the super smooth euphoria and mild comedown.”
After posting over 200 messages, “Stuffmonger” disappeared off the message board in 2011 with members of the drug community questioning the legitimacy of his posts.
“Stuffmonger’s claims were discredited and he vanished,” a senior moderator later wrote.