John McAfee, the creator of the antivirus company of the same name, reportedly died by suicide in a Spanish prison cell, according to newspaper El Pais, which cites sources close to the situation.
McAfee was found dead inside his cell Friday at a detention facility, where he was awaiting extradition to the U.S. since October, after being hit with tax fraud charges. His widow Janice McAfee said her husband was not suicidal and that she called him hours before his death. Janice also said she blames “the U.S. authorities for this tragedy. Because of these politically motivated charges against him, my husband is now dead.”
The preliminary coroner’s report, which the newspaper reported on, claims that the software mogul hanged himself in prison. His family is requesting a second autopsy. Sources also reportedly claimed that McAfee had a suicide note in his pocket when he was found, according to the Associated Press. His attorney Javier Villalba previously said McAfee died from an apparent suicide, but was unaware of a note.
The 75-year-old previously claimed that U.S. officials were after him in cryptic tweets.
“Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine,” he wrote on Twitter last year, according to the New York Post.
“His last words to me were, ‘I love you and I will call you in the evening.’ Those words are not words of somebody who is suicidal,” Janice said. “All John wanted to do was spend his remaining years fishing and drinking. He did not deserve to die in a filthy prison, like a caged animal.”
