Fugitive McAfee Had Eccentric Reputation

 A paramilitary-like security force, lavish spending, Wiccans at the office, and now a manhunt with international attention.

 

That's John McAfee, who made a fortune selling antivirus software, and who is now sought by police in Belize for questioning in connection to a 52-year old man found dead at his property on Amergris Caye there, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

 

McAfee, 67, is best-known for his eponymous anti-virus software program. Since 2008, he has lived in Belize, surrounded by at least eight gun-toting security guards in paramilitary-style uniforms and a host of dogs he adopted or otherwise brought to a large house in the Central American country, the newspaper reported.

 

A neighbor, 52-year old American citizen Gregory Viant Fuall, was found dead by his housekeeper on Sunday, according to reports. He had one bullet wound in the back of his head. Belizean police did not identify McAfee as a suspect but nonetheless want to question him, the newspaper reported.

 

McAfee wants no part of that. He is on the run, and said that he has no plans to surrender himself to police, the newspaper reported.

 

"Suspect or no, I believe the government wants me out of the way. Too many people have died in custody in this country so I intend to do nothing that puts me in their custody," he said in an e-mail to the Associated Press. 

 

It was Faull who hand-delivered a letter to the town council in San Pedro, where the two lived, outlining problems with McAfee. 

 

Two days before Faull died, several of McAfee's dogs were found dead, poisoned, according to reports.

 

"He had a reputation," said a local who knew McAfee. "He was a bit of an eccentric."

 

Back in Silicon Valley, where he founded his anti-virus company in 1987, McAfee was known for hiring Wiccans at his company and his employees competed in an office "sex tournament," wherein they received points for copulating on the premises and on the clock, the newspaper reported.

 

McAfee owned ranches in New Mexico and Colorado after leaving California in the 1990s. Deaths resulting from aircraft accidents led to McAfee being slapped with a lawsuit, which is still pending.