Dateline NBC - The Fugitive Millionaire

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

While living in paradise, a tech giant's neighbor was found dead. Then, suddenly, the entrepreneur extraordinaire was on the run, taunting authorities and tantalizing the press. It was a riveting game of hide-and-seek, but were police chasing the right man? Keith Morrison reports in this Dateline classic. Originally aired on NBC on March 26, 2015.

I remember the night was very dark. We pulled into his home. It did have the feel of almost being in a Bond movie. He had a lot going on. A millionaire computer genius, living in paradise and on the edge. I tried to cut his throat, but he just said, do it. He takes the gun out, and he puts it to his head. The jungle started to infect him, almost like a virus. Then came the mystery.

His neighbor suddenly found dead. There was blood all over the floor. Everyone was crying. I said, no, it can't possibly happen. And the millionaire was suddenly on the run, taunting authorities, launching a chase, an international hide-and-seek hunt. It seems like it's fiction.

It doesn't seem real. He may have eluded the police, but he didn't elude us. So neither you nor anybody representing you went over to Greg Paul's house and shot him through the head? No, sir. Can you possibly get any inkling of the truth? You will not believe the things that happened. I'm Lester Holt. Get ready for some serious heart of darkness here. And this is

Dateline. Keith Morrison with the fugitive millionaire. An American murdered in a tropical paradise, while a famous and wealthy man went on the run. I'm trying to delay my imminent capture. Why was he hiding? He is bonkers in my view, without a doubt. The story is a strange brew of dogs and guns and girls, teenage girls. I was ready to shoot him and for some reason I missed. An interconnected web, with one man at its center. John is smart. He knows what he's doing. The case will take us from the high-tech world of Silicon Valley to the jungles of Central America

and finally back stateside into the deep south. All right, get ready for some serious heart of darkness here. Heart of darkness? Oh yes. And a wildly strange tale about a high-flying business tycoon named John McAfee and the bizarre chain of events that would make him the focus of an international manhunt. There's little doubt you know the name McAfee. That's because you've probably had antivirus software on your computer at one time or another. In the past three weeks, we've seen five new viruses.

Back in the 80s, it was the visionary John McAfee who recognized the threat posed by invisible computer viruses and made a fortune by devising defenses to stop them. David Faber is a business reporter for CNBC. He made $100 million when it really was something to make $100 million. But Faber knew that McAfee lost most of that money in the real estate bust. This is called Snake Alley for obvious reasons, anyway, that I hope we don't find out about. It was 2009.

Faber was making a documentary about boom and bust. He found McAfee at his new adopted home in Belize. And the buff and charismatic then 64-year-old made a fascinating case study. My life has turned around 180 degrees down here. I mentioned the freedom here. There are virtually no regulations on business. A lot of it was how Belize is a paradise for people like me because I can do anything I want. There are no laws. Intellectual property, nobody cares. I can start anything.

And he did, whenever he perceived an opportunity to make a buck. Water taxis, ultralights. But his pride and joy, McAfee told Faber, was the creation of a special lab in which he planned to make new medicines from jungle plants. Hopefully we'll be production of some fairly unique pharmaceuticals. With a beach

home on an island off the coast called Ambergris Key, and a jungle compound on the mainland near the town of Carmelita, John McAfee could still afford to live large and make an impression. He had invited me over to his home, and I walked in, and he was playing the piano. And it did have the feel of almost being in a Bond movie, and this is your villain in some ways. He didn't turn to me and say, hello, Mr. Faber.

But it almost had that feel to it. I think he likes drama. I think he likes intense experiences. Joshua Davis is a contributing editor at Wired Magazine and one-time NBC News consultant. He got to know McAfee after he learned that Belizean police had raided the Millionaire's Mainland compound looking for illegal drugs. I heard about this raid on April 30th when the Belizean police force burst into his compound in the jungle. And that struck me as extraordinary. As it turned out, the police did not find any illegal drugs at McAfee's compound in that raid,

though McAfee was charged with having an unlicensed gun. The fact the police even suspected McAfee of making drugs was intriguing. McAfee had been an outspoken teetotaler ever since kicking a drug habit back in the 1980s, so Davis went to Belize to investigate. It was there, said Davis, McAfee told him, the Belizean government was seriously corrupt and the government's paramilitary gang suppression unit, or GSU, was out to get him. One of his initial explanations for why the April 30th raid happened was that one of the local politicians had come to him and asked for a donation. He had refused. As a result, they sicked the GSU on him.

To which the Belizean government replied, nonsense. They raided him because they didn't know what was going on. He had this laboratory there. It was heavily guarded. He had more bodygu. It was heavily guarded. He had more body guards than the prime minister. He had essentially a private army. And he's got a laboratory making God knows what, because he won't tell anybody. Davis went to Carmelita, the tiny town nearest McAfee's jungle compound, where townspeople told him, he said, that McAfee had gone native. As he got more involved in this small little village of Carmelita,

the way he talked started to devolve, his dress devolved. I think that the jungle and that environment started to infect him, almost like a virus. What he said to his friends was, my fragile connection with polite society has been severed. After that raid, McAfee moved back to his island house on Ambergris Key, where Davis reported he surrounded himself with guard dogs, armed men, and several teenage girls. In a country where the age of consent is 16, McAfee told Davis he liked to keep those girls busy, in bed.

He told me that for him, five hours is a quickie. And then he brought one of his girls out to confirm the point. She said, yep, that's true. McAfee was 67, living a schoolboy's dream, albeit a rather heavily armed schoolboy. Davis was soon convinced the man who once billed himself as the world's greatest computer security expert was now a security risk to himself and others. We were in his bungalow, and he had a Smith & Wesson 38 Special strapped to his chest in a holster.

He takes the gun out, he opens the chamber, there's six bullets in, He drops them out. He takes one of the bullets and he chambers it, closes it, spins the cylinder, and he puts it to his head. And I'm like, John, we don't have to do this. And he goes, I know we don't. And he says, your perception of reality may not be correct. And he starts pulling the trigger. Click, click, click, click, click, five times. And there's only six chambers. And then he pulls it a sixth time and nothing happens. He says, you have missed something about reality. And I say, oh, it's a trick. And he goes, no, it's not a trick. And he opens the door and he aims the gun at the sand and he pulls the trigger

and the bullet goes off. It was a live round. Paranoid eccentrics make good stories, but rarely make good neighbors. The armed guards and snarling dogs were an aggravation to the tourists and others who had to walk past McAfee's house. And by November 2012, one of John McAfee's neighbors may have decided he'd had enough. Darkness was about to fall on this sunny stretch of paradise. When we come back, a murder mystery. His body was there, motionless. There was blood all over the floor.

I yelled, no, it can't possibly happen. An international manhunt was about to fascinate the world. When Dateline continues. It was American expats who told us that the murder case that began in November 2012 and made headlines around the world began as a mundane neighborhood dispute about dogs. Snarling, snapping curs who frequently roamed the beach in front of John McAfee's beach home on Ambergris Key. The barking kept the neighbors up night and the biting that was bad for business. The dogs did bite a few people. I mean, we had one group of tourists leave early because of the dog situation.

Jane and Brittany McCann are property managers on Ambergris Key. And like a lot of other American expats on the island, they knew John McAfee casually. There were guards at his house. We didn't know all that was going on. Jeff Spiegel and his wife Vivian Yu said that customers walking to their restaurant just on the beach from McAfee's house had to first get past McAfee's dogs and guards. And if you're a tourist walking up and down the beach at night and somebody shines a maglite flashlight in your face while shouldering a shotgun, it can be disconcerting.

Such a harsh vibe for such a peaceful place. Not at all what Greg Fall expected when he moved to Ambergris Key back in May of 2012. We got to know Greg because after working for 12 hours a day, he would come up to our bar and hang out and talk and close it down. And Greg Fall, said Jeff, was right out of Central Casting. He'd made his money in the construction business in Florida, and in Belize, he was living out a fantasy. Greg had three birds. And the first time he walked up to the bar with Mo, you know, beach bar, Caribbean,

a guy with like a Tommy Bahama T-shirt, board shorts, paired on his shoulder. And I turned to him and I said, you realize, Greg, that you've become that guy. A happy-go-lucky guy. But oh, those dogs. Greg Fall had himself been bitten, and a profound dislike for John McAfee followed. A couple times, and, you know, John was out there, and Greg was yelling at him,

keep your dogs inside the fence, and just, you know, like, we have tourists here. I mean, they're biting people. It all came to a head on the night of November 9, 2012, a Friday. That's when four of John McAfee's dogs were poisoned. Many on the island immediately suspected that Greg did it. He told everybody that he was going to poison those dogs, you know. Everybody knew that he was going to poison those dogs, you know? Everybody knew that he was going to poison the dogs. And 36 hours later, early on a Sunday morning, Shane McCann woke up to a ringing phone. It was Greg Falls' caretaker.

Greg, he said, was dead. We thought heart attack. I was thinking heart attack. I was thinking heart attack. I'm thinking he could have slipped and fell on the tile. But no. When the McCanns and the other expats got to Greg's house, it was clear. This was no slip and fall.

His body was there, motionless. There was blood all over the floor. There was blood everywhere. Police soon determined that Greg Fall had been killed with a single gunshot to the back of the head, execution style. And there was one oddly horrifying detail. The position of Greg Fall's t-shirt. Yeah, it was pulled over like in a hockey move or something, where you pull the center up over your head like that. It was all the way behind his neck, but his shirt was still on. It was just the center was pulled up over. As he stood there

looking at his friend's corpse, said Shane, he was struck by the fact that in spite of the obvious violence, there seemed to be no sign of a robbery or even any struggle anywhere in the house. Just found it very odd that someone could subdue somebody like Greg, a guy that can free dive 50 feet for a conch, 52 years old, ex-military. How could you just subdue somebody like that? Shane figured Greg, given half a chance, would have put up a fight. That was also the first thing Artfall, Greg's father, thought when he got the news in Jacksonville, Florida. I yelled and I said, no, it can't possibly happen. Not Greg. I don't think anyone could have overpowered Greg if he'd had a chance. And I suspect that he just never had a chance.

Given the bad blood between Greg Fall and John McAfee then, the Belizean police thought it would be a good idea to walk down the beach and have a word with the reclusive millionaire. The trouble was, they couldn't find him. He'd up and disappeared. In short order, the police declared McAfee the primary suspect, and the news flashed around the world. The tech millionaire is now a fugitive. A celebrity manhunt in the tropics?

That was like catnip. So I packed my bags and booked a flight to Belize. Coming up. Here's the house. Nice. A one-time member of McAfee's harem lets us into his lair, where the stories only get stranger. You tried to shoot him?

Uh-huh. I also tried to cut his throat, but he just leaned against the wall and said, do it. When Dateline continues. When we arrived on the strip of island that was John McAfee's paradise in November 2012, the American expats we met seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Everybody knew the police were scouring the place, searching for the man they believed knew something about the murder of Greg Fall. But John McAfee truly seemed to have vanished. Though it didn't mean reporters weren't hearing from him. Right now, sir, I am holed up in a place where the mattress here has lice.

I've never experienced that before. Joshua Davis, who was writing an article about McAfee at the time, was among the first to get a call. I can't sleep at night because I'm allergic to every noise. McAfee told Davis he had a young woman with him. Sam is quite the soldier. Samantha, she has been with me largely for the past couple of months. He insisted he knew nothing whatever about his neighbor's murder. Let me ask

you just for the record, point blank, because I don't think I did before. Did you kill him? No, sir. No, sir. Yes. It's not even funny. Okay. Not only did he deny committing the murder, he proposed an astonishing idea. The bullet that killed Fall had really been meant for him. The first thing I thought about was, oh my God, he's a white man, I'm a white man. Someone's, you know, the government's finally decided to off me. They got the wrong white man. So he says, the last thing I'm going to do is turn myself into the police because they'll kill me. Kill him?

Yes. He truly believed the Belizean police wanted to get rid of him, rub him out, do him in. I'm trying to delay my imminent capture. Armored with a laptop and a cell phone and a flair for the dramatic, McAfee tantalized the press and taunted the police with clues that he was still on Ambergris Key. This is a regular occurrence apparently. There are police in there, armed police with a rifle, and they're looking through the house as they do on a regular basis or have been ever since the beginning of this. I don't think there's any expectation, really, that he's going to be here.

But they're looking. Can you speak about this, sir? Though police admitted they had no other suspect, John McAfee's classification was downgraded to the less ominous sounding person of interest. We still think he's here in Belize. Rafael Martinez was the police spokesman. We believe that he will come in.

And if you find him, you'll arrest him? We will detain him, and we will ask him some questions. But undermanned and underfunded, the Belizean police force seemed ill-equipped to actually hunt him down. A man of means like McAfee, a man who clearly did not want to be found. What's your message for John McAfee?

I would want to appeal to him and tell him, please come in, let's bring a closure to this case, and let's all carry on with our lives. But John McAfee seemed to be toying with the police, leaving clues in his blog, hinting he might be hiding right under their noses, cleverly disguised as a tourist or a street vendor. Been in public many, many times. I went shopping in public the other day.

Went to buy some strawberries. Our search was quite unlike that of the police. We made arrangements with middlemen for a secret rendezvous. But McAfee never showed. Of course, John might not be on the island at all. The only person who seemed always to know how to reach him was one of McAfee's former teenage lovers, Amy Herbert. A lot of guests here besides girls? I mean, just as much, not much other company, no.

Amy had John McAfee's trust, it seemed. You want to go from the front door? It doesn't matter. So it was with his permission, she said, that Amy showed us around his beach estate. Here's the house. Nice. We would always snorkel almost every weekend, and he would get his tan. But, said Amy, after that police raid, everything changed. That's when he started being paranoid and he just kept inside. Given McAfee's bizarre behavior, some people wondered if he was using drugs again. Did you guys ever do drugs in here or anywhere? No, he never accepted any type of drugs

on his property. Later, Amy told us she had often seen McAfee doing some kind of chemical experiments. I'm like, what are you doing? He said, I'm just working on some chemicals and stuff. He said it's for research. He said never to touch these. Taste it. Eat it. Anything.

He said it's poison. Do you have any idea what it was? I did not have any idea. He wouldn't tell you? He would not tell me anything about it. It was around then, said Amy, that her strange relationship with John McAfee had its strangest moment. I was angry, whatever, and I was ready to shoot him, and for some reason I missed. You tried to shoot him? Uh-huh.

Yes. I also tried to cut his throat, but he just said, he just leaned against the wall and said, do it. I couldn't do it. And you stayed together after that? Oh, yeah, he loved me more, I guess. But he slept with one eye open. Though the romance eventually ended, Amy remained close enough to McAfee to get him on the phone for us.

How are you doing? McAfee wouldn't say where he was hiding, but he did hint he was close by. We were in one of your boats, you're absolutely right. Was he watching us? Were the police watching us too, hoping we might lead them to him? Listen, can you tell us anything that will clear up some questions about what happened over the course of that weekend when your neighbor was killed? We traveled a long way for that phone call, and we're still no closer to laying eyes on him than we're the Belizean police. And then, days after the call,

McAfee's blog reported he'd been captured in Mexico. But no, that turned out to be false. And then on December 4, 2012, nearly a month after Greg Fall was murdered, McAfee announced on his blog that he and his young female companion had crossed the border to Guatemala. Why Guatemala? Well, a couple of very practical reasons. Some of them about family and some international politics. And because of that, the story got even stranger.

After weeks on the run, there he was in the flesh. According to McAfee, he was not running from a homicide investigation, oh no. He said he was in Guatemala to ask for political asylum and protection from the government of Belize. Seven months ago, the Belizean government sent 42 armed soldiers into my property. I had to leave, but the story has to get out. According to McAfee's 20-year-old companion, Samantha Venegas,

the couple came to Guatemala in part because she had a relative here who could be helpful. So I told him, I have an uncle who's a lawyer and he's a pretty good lawyer and he could ask anyone here in Guatemala.

You certainly could. Sam's uncle has represented some of the biggest names in Central America, like former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. But convincing a judge that John McAfee was a political refugee was shaping up to be John McAfee's biggest challenge yet. Coming up. When your life is in danger, you have to lie.

And he did. Inside his life on the run, a master of disguise. And nobody recognized him. No one ever recognized him. And the element of surprise, a sudden collapse. And everyone's heart skips a beat when Dateline continues. For weeks after the murder of Greg Fall, we and much of the rest of the world's press tried to find the elusive John McAfee, a spectacle which, for Greg Fall's father, Art, and stepmom, Roseanne, was pretty hard to take. I had phone calls from CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CNN, the New York Times,

and the Wall Street Journal in two days. It was questions about this other fellow. And it's like, excuse me, you're asking me the wrong question. Ask me about our loss. And that seemed almost to be secondary, like it was lost in the shuffle. That's right. It was lost in the shuffle. Greg was pushed off to one side because it was the McAfee circus. No doubt McAfee was good copy. But with the police not talking and John McAfee not talking to police, rumor and speculation was about all there was. That is, until the world's most wanted person of interest surfaced in Guatemala, seeking sanctuary.

According to McAfee's traveling companion, Samantha Vanegas, the couple had used their wits to elude capture. For weeks, she said, McAfee made the police think he was on Ambergris Key, when in fact he and she were hiding out on the mainland, she said, in Belize City. He was in the city. I mean, John is smart. He knows what he's doing. I mean, he turned his phone on and said, you know what? They're going to track us down. Leave the phone there. We took out all the battery of the phone and leave one on the island. And people really thought he was there.

Because his cell phone was there on the island. Because they were tracking it. And what made them think he was there? Because on his blog he would say, I am standing like 20, 20 to 40 feet from my yard and I could see that the police are waiting. And that was a lie. That was a lie. When your life is in danger, you have to lie.

Yeah. And he did. But it certainly wasn't easy, said Samantha. Very uncomfortable in those early days on the land. We're doing bushes everywhere. We cross rivers by boat. John Back was at one point look horrible. It has a lot of bites on it.

I even told him, dude, you look real sick. You don't even look like John. He was skinny because he didn't eat. He didn't drink water. True? Impossible to know, but that was her story. Eventually, said Samantha, they found a place to hole up, and McAfee dyed his hair,

and whenever he needed to venture out into the open, he donned a disguise. He pretended he was a crippled guy, humpback, painted his hair white, his beard, put on a hat, glasses, whatever it would take for his safety, he would do. And nobody recognized him? No one ever recognized him. And according to Vanegas, it was her uncle, the lawyer,

who arranged to have her and McAfee smuggled out of Belize, first by taxi cab from Belize City to Punta Gorda, and then by boat to Guatemala. It has been an adventure for me, yet disturbing. Because I don't like to leave my house. It makes me sick. You don't feel well? I don't.

John McAfee wasn't exactly feeling on top of the world either, it seemed. First, a Guatemalan judge summarily dismissed his petition for political asylum. And then the Guatemalan police took him into custody, not as a murder suspect, but on the grounds he had entered the country illegally. And then, the next day at the local immigration detention center, as a gaggle

of media waited to find out if Guatemalan authorities would send McAfee back to Belize, this story took a heart-stopping turn. Within sight of the assembled cameras, John McAfee suddenly swooned and appeared to lose consciousness. Within minutes, he was rushed to the hospital. But when doctors could find nothing wrong with him, he was returned to the detention center. And it was there that John McAfee finally agreed to sit with us.

And what an interview it was. A crazy man on the run is far more sensational than a political problem. Right. And you are an insane man on the run. Coming up... May I stand up for a moment? Expect the unexpected. How can that be menacing? Could he really be behind this?

So neither you nor anybody representing you went over to Greg Falls' house and pulled his T-shirt up over his head and shot him through the head. When Dateline continues. For nearly a month, John McAfee, one of Silicon Valley's original princes of high tech, had been hiding from Belizean police. They wanted to talk to him about the murder of his neighbor, Greg Fall. Now detained in Guatemala with nowhere to hide, John McAfee decided to talk to us. Though, it must be said, he didn't seem to relish the prospect. Here's the problem. You have a deadline, right? And your deadline is always now because the news has become immediacy, immediacy. Your

job is to get the news out before your competition. Well, that makes your deadline infinitesimally small. Can you possibly get any inkling of the truth in that infinitesimally small space? No, but you can when you research things, as we do. All we do, or all the folks do, is research everybody else. New York Times said this, CNN said this. But this is really a question. The whole point is that this is a story about a murder.

You would not, for you in the public eye... It is the story about a murder. For me, it is not. It was interesting for a man who once used the media to such personal advantage. John McAfee seemed to resent the press now that he was in custody in Guatemala. What sells in the news? Sensationalism. A crazy man on the run is far more sensational than a political problem. Right. And you are an insane man on the run is far more sensational than a political problem. Right. And you are an insane man on the run. If you say so.

I mean, but that's the image. I mean, you have a blog. You know what the comments in your blog are. They all think you're nuts. They all think I'm nuts. Half of them do. Half of them think I'm nuts and half of them think they love me. Okay? Both of them are nuts.

Because once they think they love me, they've never met me. Well, the assumption is you enjoy it. That's a perception. Why was I not in the press for 10 years? I would not talk to a reporter. I don't trust you guys. Can't imagine why. Because whatever I say to you people, because I live a lifestyle which might be a little over the line or outside, over the line of normal behavior, instead of looking at the latest thing I'm trying to develop, oh, that's great, that's great about the antibiotics, but tell me, tell me about your lifestyle.

On the subject of great fall, John Mack, if he conceded, there was bad blood between the two men. I did not particularly care for the man. He drank a lot. I'm sorry, I don't hang with people who drink. I don't even want to talk to people who drink while they're drinking. In the weeks and months leading up to the murder, how often did you see him? Maybe one time. Maybe twice.

And only passing the beach. He did come by one time and said, I'm just angry about your dogs. I can't sleep. And I go, I'm really sorry. I can't sleep either. I'm angry about my dogs. I sympathized. And did you say you were going to do something about the dogs? Yes, and I did something. I built another fence so that they were jumping out. That was annoying all the neighbors.

Was he also complaining about your security guards and the guns that they were carrying around? They were. Everybody complained about that, too. Everybody complained about that. He was not an exception. You would allow security guards to wander around in the front of your house, in front of a public beach, with guns, menacing, at least in the perception of the tourists walking by, these people,

and not prevent them from doing so? Okay, here's what, may I stand up for a moment? Do whatever you wish. Are you clever enough to do this? I think you are. Okay, so now, if someone is carrying a gun, a shotgun, holding like this, how can that be menacing? How can that be menacing, sir? Someone sees a gun? Well, the world is full of guns. America has 280 million of them. However your neighbors were saying, that these men weren't just holding the guns down.

They were pointing them at people. They were threatening people. Do you think I would tolerate that? Get real. As he had from the beginning, McAfee insisted he had no motive for killing Fall. He never believed Fall was responsible for poisoning his dogs, he said. I knew who killed the dogs. Who? The government.

The witness who has no reason to lie claims that Greg Fall told him he was going to kill the dogs. Well, he told everybody. The night before. But he told everybody he was going to kill the dogs. He drank a lot. So you blew it off. I know for a fact he's not the kind of person going to kill the dogs. He drank a lot, sir. I just blew it off you. I know for a fact he's not the kind of person who would kill a dog. How do you know that? Because he was a dog lover. I'm told that he didn't love dogs at all. Well, that's fine.

All I can tell you is I believed he loved dogs. There's lots of evidence to suggest Greg Fall killed your dogs. Well, no, I say there's a lot of evidence where Greg Fall could have killed my dogs. Anybody could have killed my dogs. I know who poisoned my dogs. My paranoia tells me. Okay, agreed. So neither you nor anybody representing you went over to Greg Fall's house on that occasion

and pulled his T-shirt up over his head and shot him through the head? No, sir. The government poisoned my dogs. And the government killed Greg Fall? How would I know who killed Greg Fall? I don't believe the government killed him. That was the first thought through my mind, however. Still, at the time we spoke, McAfee seemed to face a probability of deportation back to Belize. He seemed remarkably unconcerned. In fact, told us that after five years in what he once called an entrepreneurial paradise, he was looking forward to going home, back to the good old USA. How do you see this whole saga ending?

Happy for everybody. Happy for everybody. What I will do is I will stop bashing beliefs in my block. My neighbors can have some peace and quiet. The Guatemalan government gets to go, thank God he didn't want to stay here. Everybody's happy. America's happy. More tax dollars. It's the perfect solution.

That will be the solution. You're convinced of it? You know, I haven't been wrong much about my life. You know, the people who know me will say one thing. Don't ever bet with this man. I don't like to lose money. I don't. And I'll bet you on this one.

Spoken like a gambler who might have known the fix was in, the real question was whether John McAfee would ever be forced to sit face to face with homicide detectives. Coming up... I don't understand it. It almost feels hopeless. The murder of Greg Fall. Will a broken-hearted family get answers? And the mysterious Mr. McAfee in danger again? My wife and I ran downstairs.

We hid under a car for four and a half hours while they searched everywhere for us. When Dateline continues. A week of the John McAfee media circus was apparently all Guatemala could take. On December 12, 2012, the runaway millionaire was abruptly deported. Not to Belize, where he was considered a person of interest in a murder case,

but back to the United States, where he was considered a celebrity. John, thanks so much for joining us. You are in Miami, aren't you? I was just playing around with you. Yes, I am in Miami. At every stop on his media rounds, McAfee said he would gladly answer questions about the murder of Greg Fole,

but not in Belize. What will you do if you were charged with this murder and the U.S. forces you to go back to Belize? Will you disappear? Will you go to answer those charges? I will certainly answer any questions, and I've offered to answer them in a neutral country. If I am, well, I'm certainly going to answer them, but it will not happen, sir.

Back on Belize is Ambergris Key. American expats like Vivian Yu and Jeff Spiegel are left to wonder if the investigation into Greg Falls' murder is even active. Nobody said anything. They're not looking for anybody else as far as we know. Why? We only know as far as we know. Why? We only know as much as you know and as much as everybody else knows. Could detectives have made some sense of it all had they been able to question McAfee? That time seemed to have passed.

As for John McAfee, after brief stints living in Portland, Oregon and Colorado Springs, Montreal, McAfee told us he'd settled in Lexington, Tennessee. Among his many projects, he started a company called Future Tents Central to develop Internet security and privacy products. McAfee also became a big backer of cryptocurrency and even ran for president in 2016 as a libertarian. As for all those young women McAfee spent time with down in Belize, they were left behind. McAfee married his wife Janice in 2013. The last time we spoke, he still believed the Belizean government was out to get him and described what he said was an attempt on his life in Portland. At 2.15 in the morning, two police motorcycles, followed by a black sedan, followed by a garbage truck, parked in front of our condominium, 2.15. My wife and I ran downstairs. We hid under a car for four and a half hours while they searched everywhere for us.

The security cameras, by the way, were removed on that day. It was a frightening experience for us. But in spite of that, said McAfee, he was tired of running. It is exhausting to live in fear. And at some point you say, this is no way to live. And if you're wondering what happened to all those guns he seemed so fond of brandishing for the cameras, McAfee told us that was all just for show. In order to sell newspapers, they need drama.

And, you know, a madman with guns, well, that's drama. I'm so sure. Here they are. I'll hold them. How do you want me to hold them? You bet. I'll do that. I don't even have them with me today. If you want to see a gun, my security guard has one. So, no, I mean, that's not me. That's what the press wants to make of me. Perhaps. But John McAfee kept adding fuel to the fire. A few months after this interview, the self-professed teetotaler was arrested for driving well under the influence and possession of a handgun while intoxicated.

In typical McAfee fashion, he joked about the incident on social media and claimed, falsely, that he had a shootout with police. He pleaded guilty to DUI, forfeited his weapon, paid a fine, spent 48 hours in jail, all of which begged the question, could anyone take seriously anything John McAfee said? As you might imagine, for Greg Falls' family, the answer to that was no.

It doesn't make any sense at all. If McAfee claims his innocence, why did he disappear and make a circus of this whole thing? I don't understand it. And I just wish someone would investigate it or find someone who can talk about it and bring some justice somewhere. But Fall's family wasn't holding their breath, waiting for justice. It almost feels hopeless because, you know, it's a foreign country, and I don't know how to handle it.

Are you getting any answers or any contact from them? No, not anything from them at all. In 2013, the family filed a wrongful death suit against John McAfee. After the millionaire failed to respond to their claims, a federal judge deemed him to be in default and ordered McAfee to pay Falls' estate more than $25 million. In response, McAfee issued a statement insisting he was never charged with Greg Falls' murder. He also claimed he had no assets, so he was unable to pay even a penny of the judgment against him.

And he wouldn't be paying another nemesis either, the IRS. From undisclosed locations around the world, McAfee taunted the taxman on Twitter. I have not paid taxes for eight years. I've made no secret of it. I have not filed returns. Every year I tell the IRS, I'm not filing a return. I have no intention of doing so. Come and find me. In the fall of 2020, the Justice Department did just that, tracking McAfee down in Spain, where he was arrested for

income tax evasion. But his legal woes didn't end there. In a separate case filed months later, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York indicted McAfee on seven new charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. All stemmed from his online promotion of cryptocurrencies. The 75-year-old denied any wrongdoing, but he would not live to see his day in court. On June 23, 2021, McAfee was found hanging in his jail cell. Authorities suspected it was suicide. The official cause of death is pending investigation, but in a cryptic tweet sent months before his death, McAfee wrote,

Know that if I hang myself a la Jeffrey Epstein, it will be no fault of mine. Just like the eccentric millionaire to keep people guessing until the very end. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.