His wife Janice McAfee rejects the claims as "silly," adding: "Oh how I wish this were true. If John were alive I'm pretty sure he would not be hiding out in Texas."
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John McAfee isn't dead and is now hiding in Texas, according to his ex-girlfriend.
The software entrepreneur's body was found in a Spanish prison cell in June 2021 — hours after a court authorized his extradition to the U.S. on tax evasion charges.
But in a new Netflix documentary, Samantha Herrera has suggested this isn't actually what happened. When asked when she last spoke to McAfee, she says:
"I don't know if I should say, but… two weeks ago, after his death, I got a call from Texas."
Herrera claims that McAfee said:
"Hey, it's me, John — I paid off people to pretend that I am dead, but I am not dead."
She said she was the only true person in the world who knew he was still alive — and went on to suggest that McAfee had asked her to run away with him.
The sensational claim has been made in Running With The Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee — a film that documents his years on the run, and his alcohol and drug-fueled escapades.
His wife Janice McAfee — who maintains that his death was not a suicide — rejected Herrera's story of events, tweeting:
"Oh how I wish this were true. If John were alive I'm pretty sure he would not be hiding out in Texas."
And while she later said that Texas is "awesome," Janice added:
"John was being held in a Spanish prison because of trumped charges against him from the IRS so I doubt he would choose to hide out in America. That would be silly."
The documentary follows a Vice cameraman and reporter who are tasked with following McAfee while he was in hiding — accused of murdering his neighbor Gregory Faull.
At one point, Janice McAfee claims that she was being pressured by the Sinaloa drug cartel to poison her husband while she made him dinner.
Running With The Devil also includes copious amounts of footage from his time in exile, before his death in June 2021.
Plenty Unresolved
Back in June, Janice McAfee marked the first anniversary of her husband's death by renewing calls to allow his family to review the findings of an autopsy that concluded he killed himself.
A judge has refused — and has said that McAfee's body cannot be returned to his loved ones until this matter is resolved, meaning he has been lying in a Spanish morgue for over a year.
A petition calling for an independent autopsy to be performed has said:
"John McAfee's funeral plans have now had to be delayed for almost an entire year because of the lethargic behavior and attitude of Spanish officials. It is imperative that this matter be brought to international attention."
He was 75 years old at the time of his death — and McAfee's libertarian philosophy meant he was a strong cryptocurrency supporter — famously predicting to "eat his d*** if Bitcoin had failed to reach $1 million by 2020.
At the time of his death, he was facing five counts of income tax evasion amid allegations that he had failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars he earned between 2014 and 2018.
In October 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice said a lot of this income came from "promoting cryptocurrencies, consulting work, speaking engagements, and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary."
Picture courtesy of Gage Skidmore.
