A reporter meets with John McAfee, the eponymous creator of the McAfee antivirus software who has been on the run from authorities in Belize for the past several months:
“The obvious question was, why run at all? After all, the police had said that there were no charges against McAfee yet. ‘He is still just a person of interest’ in the investigation, Raphael Martinez, a police spokesperson, told me. ‘We are still looking for him.’ (Asked why they had not found him, Martinez said, ‘It beats the hell out of me.’)
“Besides, McAfee insisted that he had nothing to do with Faull’s murder and that in spite of being neighbours – their houses were about 300 yards apart – he barely even knew the man. ‘He drank and I don’t hang with people who drink,’ he said. He also reminded me that Belize was not as safe as people thought. I had already checked the statistics: according to United Nations figures, the country’s murder rate has risen rapidly, from about 16 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2000 to more than 41 in 2010.
“For many people, the answer was that McAfee was paranoid. Or as Dean Barrow, Belize’s prime minister, suggested a couple of weeks ago in statements made in Belize City to a local reporter, McAfee might simply be ‘bonkers’.”
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