John McAfee Found Dead In Prison Cell of an Apparent Suicide
The conspiracy theories on this one are going to be legion: John McAfee was found dead in his Spanish prison cell hours after a hearing extradited him back to America.
The Catalan Justice Department said prison medics tried to resuscitate him, but were not successful.
It said in a statement that “everything indicates” Mr McAfee took his own life.
A controversial figure, Mr McAfee’s company released the first commercial anti-virus software.
It helped to spark a multi-billion dollar industry in the computer world.
In October 2020, he was arrested in Spain, and accused of failing to file tax returns for four years, despite earning millions from consulting work, speaking engagements, crypto-currencies and selling the rights to his life story.
The US Justice Department alleged that Mr McAfee evaded tax liability by having his income paid into bank accounts and cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the names of nominees.
He was also accused of concealing assets, including a yacht and real estate property, in the names of others.
Epstein did it!Report
You’d be surprised at how many people — who have no idea who McAfee is — are claiming this.
Apparently they think that a strung-out, incredibly crazy bath salts abuser is some secret killer witness instead of, you know, a dude that got rich, went nuts with drugs, killed someone, talked at length about having sex with whales, committed a whole BUNCH of US felonies, fled the jurisdiction while bragging about how he committed said felonies (tax and fraud), then dumbly went to Europe because — and I’m just spitballing — ALL THE BATH SALTS.
Then killed himself because he’s 74, looking at life in jail, and despite all the fraud and tax evasion he’d pretty much blown all his money.
WHO KNEW A MENTALLY UNSTABLE MASSIVE DRUG ABUSER MIGHT KILL HIMSELF. CRAZY.Report
But he said he wouldn’t, he said if he did, he didn’t!
WHY WON’T YOU LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE!!Report
He said this in October:
Which doesn’t mean that he didn’t do it.
But.
Like…Report
And this one too:
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It’s pretty classic narcissistic behaviour, tbh. He can’t just kill himself. He needs drama even beyond the grave.Report
Man, it’s almost like things changed for him in the year or two since those tweets.
You know, jail, COVID-19 in jail, learning the US would actually get to extradite him, realizing he’d die in jail and penniless to boot….
No, must be CIA assassins killing him so he doesn’t testify at the trial the US insisted he have? I’m sorry, I can’t figure out the crazy.
The usual idiots are either in “CONSPIRACY” mode or “I’M JUST ASKING QUESTIONS/JUST POSTING PEOPLE’S THOUGHTS” mode.Report
He totally killed himselfReport
I know that people hate taxes and everything but the amount of narcissism and radicalization it takes to not want to pay taxes that much is staggering. Like there are plenty of semi-legitimate ways that wealthy people use to avoid paying taxes. This wasn’t enough for Mr. McAfee. He just didn’t want to straight up pay taxes and ended up killing himself rather than pay taxes.Report
Much like Epstein, I don’t think he killed himself because of the actual underlying crime. He couldn’t stomach the shame of being caught, since, also like Epstein, he believed he was better then everyone else and thus not subject to law and punishment. The realization that yes, the system was in fact going to hold him to account was more then his narcissism could take.
I expect this will happen again for other well known figures who are on the cusp of indictment.Report
I don’t think McAfee was murdered.
He claims to have built a dead-man switch to release incriminating evidence of ‘stuff’ if he was killed… I doubt he had the stuff, and I doubt he had a dead-man switch, and I doubt anyone really powerful cared enough to have him killed. The pattern of posting these things seems consistent with a general concept of MaAfee nonsense.
If a cache of incriminating stuff does in fact emerge, however, I’d have to consider that anew.
I think Epstein killed himself, but I also suspect there’s more to his suicide than suicide simpliciter. There *is* a dead-man cache, there are people who very much didn’t want him to go to trial, and there is a vast fortune that is going somewhere – quite possibly along pre-arranged lines … assuming he had the good sense to remove himself properly. His may have been an assisted suicide.
Other than baseline investigation of why someone in custody died, I’m not expecting anything unusual from McAfee; I do think there are many things that ought to be investigated (still) regarding Epstein.Report
…and selling the rights to his life story
I bet that’s gone up in value suddenly.Report
this is the kind of thing Ockham’s Razor was made for. ‘Course most of the people posting manifestoey stuff online have never heard of it.
Dude killed himself because he couldn’t face the humiliation of extradition and (I presume) federal prison. It would take a LOT, a LOT a LOT, to convince me otherwise.Report
He was at prime risk. Lengthy incarceration (made worse by a pandemic), massive loss of wealth and the luxuries he enjoyed, obvious mental problems and a lengthy history of drug use (the sort that leave permanent neural effects), and a precipitating event (the news he would be extradited and the last of his wealth, and any hope for freedom gone).
It’s not as fun as speculating wildly that the CIA killed him, lest he be taken into the CIA’s control via extradition or whatever weird flexes people are trying to make.
And god, “at risk man commits suicide for obvious reasons” clearly does not satisfy some people’s need for drama and sh*t stirring.Report
The difference between a conspiracy theorist and the dude who knows something is the degree to which everything has to be connected with pretty little strings.
Someone ordered him assassinated.
Who? Damned if I know or care.
This is the type of dude who thinks he can murder someone and get away with minimal consequences.
Spoiler alert: he was right.Report