John McAfee: Wanted for Murder, the Fugitive Software Pioneer Launches a Blog

Wanted for questioning by Belize police, McAfee is blogging, perhaps inadvisedly, about his disguises and his life on the run.

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AP Photo/The Hinterland

A screenshot of the blog of software-company founder John McAfee, in which he describes life on the lam after police in Belize called him a person of interest in the slaying of fellow American Gregory Viant Faull

John McAfee is on the run.

The multimillionaire writer of the world’s first antivirus-computer-software program is wanted for questioning in the Nov. 11 murder of his former neighbor, Gregory Viant Faull, in a luxury resort community in Belize. McAfee has lived in the Latin American country for the past couple years, cultivating an appetite for guns and guard dogs and, as lengthy reports on Wired and the tech blog Gizmodo have recounted, getting very strange. Faull, a 54-year-old American expatriate whom McAfee had clashed with in the past, was discovered by a housekeeper on the morning of Nov. 11 dead from a gunshot to the back of his head.

Now, a week into his self-imposed flight, McAfee has done something even more unexpected: he has created a new blog, The Hinterland, where he writes about his life and his experiences on the run.

The Hinterland’s introduction reads:

“With lots of time on my hands and very little to do with it, I’ve been reflecting on the recent detour my life has taken. How did I end up as a murder suspect on the lam?”

The blog seems to be an attempt by McAfee to reach out directly to his audience — whoever that might be — and sidestep the press, which he has admonished for making the recent events of his life “sensationalized to the max.” In particular he is critical of Joshua Davis’ recent Wired magazine profile, which features a photo of the tattooed 67-year-old shirtless and hoisting a shotgun.

McAfee is a pretty active blogger, posting 13 entries since Saturday. Unusually for a man considered the main person of interest in a murder investigation, the onetime software guru has posted extensively about his various disguises. The first day in hiding, McAfee wrote, he dyed his beard and hair a “light grey,” darkened his skin with shoe polish, puffed up his cheeks with bubble gum, donned some Guatemalan clothes, walked with a limp and peddled woven goods. The next day, he “nearly sold” a dolphin carving to an Associated Press reporter, only to have him dart away to take an urgent phone call. Another day he pretended to be a drunken tourist decked out in a Speedo and a “distasteful, oversized Hawaiian shirt,” and wandered around screaming obscenities in German.

McAfee doesn’t shy from protesting his innocence on The Hinterland — he’s stated earlier that he believes the Belize government wants him dead and that they’d killed Faull mistaking him for his neighbor. But he also finds time for lengthy reports on Belize’s prostitution industry and a rumination on “love and deception” as a senior citizen who appears to be dating a 20-year-old.

If you are concerned that McAfee’s capture might turn off this brilliant spout of cultural reporting, ersatz philosophy and Mission Impossible–style disguises, do not fret. “If I am captured, this blog will continue,” McAfee notes. “I have pre-written enough material to keep this blog alive for at least a year.”