McAfee Founder Facing Murder Charges

Mcafee murder questioning

John McAfee, the founder and namesake of the McAfee antivirus software company, is wanted for murder in Belize, Gizmodo reported Monday.
According to Gizmodo, the antivirus pioneer is a prime suspect in the murder of an American expatriate named Gregory Faull who was shot in his home on Saturday night. Faull, described in the report as a well-liked builder, had previously filed a formal complaint against McAfee for firing off guns and exhibiting “roguish behavior.” Apparently the two men had had a disagreement about dogs sometime before Faull was shot.
A police statement obtained by Gizmodo notes that police haven’t established a motive yet, but are pursuing several leads, one of which appears to be McAfee.
McAfee founded the antivirus company in the late 1980s and it was eventually sold to Intel for $7.7 billion in 2010. McAfee, however, retired from the company well before then in 1994 and has been unaffiliated with it ever since. In recent years, he has turned his attention to a new company he co-founded called Quorumex, which is based in Belize and researches antibiotics. Gizmodo states that McAfee has become “increasingly erratic” and estranged in recent years — experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs and posting to chat rooms about his experiences.
John McAfeeEarlier this year, McAfee was arrested in Belize for possessing illegal firearms, which he described at the time as being a “bogus charge.” He also accused police of having killed his dog during the raid on his house — for whatever reason, dogs seem to be a recurring theme in all this.
As strange as it is, McAfee isn’t the first founder of a software company to be accused of murder. Hans Reiser, the Linux programmer behind the ReiserFS filesystem, was convicted of killing his wife in 2008.
UPDATE: An earlier version of this story implied John McAfee was affiliated with the McAfee antivirus company through 2010 when it was sold to Intel. McAfee retired from the company in 1994 and has not been affiliated with it since.
Posted on Mashable
Image courtesy of YouTube.

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