01x06 - John McAfee

[bunniefuu]

Hello, there.

My name is John McAfee.

[ Crash ]

[ Women talking excitedly ]

[ g*nsh*t ]

Just coming in right now...

John McAfee, the creator
of an antivirus software,

found dead in a Spanish prison.

He's dead. They k*lled him.

Within 30 minutes
of McAfee's death,

the hashtag
"JohnMcAfeeDidntKillHimself"

went viral.

McAfee said
if he ever wound up dead

by suicide in a prison cell,

he was whacked
by the U.S. government.

"They did to him
what they did to Epstein."

You cannot
make this crap up, folks.

This is... This is real life.

McAfee was seen as a rebel,

an outlaw, a truth-teller.

The Deep State rules everything.

I don't believe
he k*lled himself.

I believe he was m*rder*d.

We don't have an autopsy report.

We don't have
any crime-scene photos.

It's like a game,

and there were people
that got caught up in it,

and it was dangerous.

♪♪

911. Emergency.

The official narrative
doesn't tell the whole story.

But you really
have to look at everything.

You still have to go down
that rabbit hole.

You still have to go down
that path.

When a celebrity dies,

the search for answers
moves online,

and the truth
may be one click away.

It's the morning
of June 23, 2021,

in a small prison
outside of Barcelona,

and John McAfee
has just received the news

he had been dreading.

Spain's National Court

has ordered his extradition
to the United States.

If convicted,
it means the 75-year-old

could spend the rest of his life
behind bars.

According to his wife,
McAfee spoke to her briefly

on the phone that morning.

His last words to me were,

"I love you and
I will call you in the evening."

But the call never came.

Around 4:00 p.m.,
McAfee asked prison guards

to let him stay in his cell
during his scheduled free time.

But when they return
two hours later,

they make a shocking discovery.

John McAfee's lifeless body
is found hanging.

John McAfee, the creator
of an antivirus software,

found dead in a Spanish prison.

John McAfee was a
multimillionaire entrepreneur,

famous for the McAfee antivirus
software that he invented.

But to many, he's best known
for his outlandish exploits,

colorful personality,
and wild conspiracy theories.

His death was a bonanza
of conspiracy theories,

and I knew it would be
as soon as it happened.

He was involved in money.

There were drugs.
There were women.

There was weird stuff.
There were flights From the law.

My name is Jimmy Watson.

Can't talk about the missions
that I was on,

but I did 12 combat deployments

between the Marine Corps
and the Navy SEALs.

John McAfee... he said,

"I need you to come over
to my house immediately

'cause I'm in fear
for my life."

I was like, "Sir,
I'm here to protect you."

I started seeing what John
was seeing through his eyes.

Then we started becoming closer.

Most people see
these documentaries

out there and stuff about him.

Nothing has been accurate
about him so far.

He's portrayed as the bad guy.

Because that's
all they know of him.

That's all he wanted them
to know about him.

That's why there's so much
misportrayal out there

about him because
they don't have the real story.

When I heard that John McAfee
had died,

everything about it
seemed suspicious

because everything in his life
was so weird

and so public and so outsized.

[ g*n c*ck, g*nsh*t ]

And so many people
may have had good reason

to think his death
was suspicious

because just three days
before his alleged suicide,

his wife tweeted that powerful
forces were out to get him.

- "Somebody got to him.
- Somebody took him out.

There's no way this happened
by his own hand.

There has to be
a conspiracy here."

When Spanish authorities

released little information
about his death,

online sleuths
turned to the Internet

for clues about who might have
wanted John McAfee dead and why.

My name is Deanna Thompson,
and I am an Internet sleuth.

From 2010 to 2012,
I tracked down a k*ller,

and he was eventually arrested.

I was always fascinated
with McAfee

because I spend a lot of time
in dark places on the Internet,

and so did John.

So when he died,
I became fascinated

with all the conspiracies
surrounding his death.

When you're talking
about conspiracy theories

like John McAfee
didn't k*ll himself,

there's not one narrative
leading throughout.

In the hours after his death,

three theories
begin to spread online.

Some claim he was taken out
by the U.S. government

because he knew too much
about the so-called Deep State.

He said he's going to release
information to the news outlets

about Hollywood elites
and corporate America elites

that are, you know,
in this evil cabal

that are raping
and murdering children.

Another theory is
he was targeted

by a Central American government

because he was going to expose
their corruption.

And on the fringes of the Web,

an even more bizarre idea
begins to spread...

That he faked his own death
and is still out there.

His ex believes
that he faked his own death.

This is a case where
the people who knew him best

are the ones
adding fuel to the fire.

- [ Ding! ]
- I've been working as

an investigative journalist
for over a decade now.

I've been really focusing in

on the spread of myths
and disinformation

and how conspiracy theories
take hold of society.

I have a background

in army counterintelligence
and anti-terrorism operations,

and I'm a criminal investigator

for my local
sheriff's department.

What Justin, Deanna, and I are
going to do here

is evaluate
some of these theories

and see where they lead us

and see if they lead us
in a plausible direction.

When we're missing key pieces
of evidence in a case,

we have to think outside the box
a little bit

and start looking at the next...

ring, if you will,
of information.

As online sleuths
start poring over the details

of McAfee's strange
and troubled life,

they immediately
discover patterns.

In order to understand
who John McAfee is,

you really have to know
about his origins.

He seemed to have it all,

but in learning about him,
he definitely had a dark side.

So, when you learn that
somebody committed suicide,

one of the first things
you ask yourself is,

does that person have a family
history of mental-health issues?

He grew up
in a very a*usive household,

being abused
by his alcoholic father.

And one thing we do know

is that John's father
was a*usive to him.

And he said that his father
committed suicide with a g*n

when John was 15.

That's a really important
data point.

In 1986, the world's
first computer virus

crossed over from Pakistan
to America,

and McAfee saw an opportunity.

He developed the world's
first antivirus program.

McAfee stumbled on
a brilliant idea.

Within five years
of launching his company,

half of Fortune 500 companies

were using
McAfee antivirus software.

[ Dial-up modem buzzing ]

McAfee left his namesake company
with a $100-million fortune

and, over the decade
that followed,

managed to squander
almost all of it.

He spent a lot of money
on, like, weird ventures.

One of McAfee's startup ideas

was an aviation sport
called aerotrekking,

which basically involved people
flying around in giant kites,

but the sport had a deadly end.

It led to the death
of his nephew,

as well as a father of three.

And not long afterwards,
probably facing

a wrongful-death lawsuit,
McAfee fled to Belize.

This would become kind of
a pattern for McAfee.

He'd get in trouble,
he'd flee the country.

He reinvented himself
as a tycoon.

He was constantly surrounded

with scantily clad women
and heavily armed bodyguards.

When he arrives in Belize,

McAfee makes friends
with local authorities

when he donates
stun g*ns, radios,

and other gear to the police.

And at first, they appear
to look the other way

while he parties, shoots g*ns,
and does whatever he wants.

But he claims
the government got greedy

and tried to extort him
for more money.

The local political authority
and police came to me

and said, "Mr. McAfee,
if you would donate $2 million,

we'll give you a million acres."

I said no.

They wanted him to pay
the president at the time

$2 million for his campaign
coming up.

He refused to.
Bad things happened.

McAfee allegedly tries to turn
the tables on the government

using his knowledge
of Internet security.

He donated these computers
to the government

with a keystroke technology
software on them

so he could collect dirt
from them.

He was collecting
vital information on them.

He claims that his spy software
had uncovered corruption

at the highest levels
of the Belize government.

His conflict
with Belizean authorities

reaches a boiling point in 2012.

McAfee got in all sorts
of new legal hot water

when his neighbor was found shot
in the back of the head.

McAfee and the neighbor had been
disputing for quite some time.

The neighbor
had allegedly complained

about McAfee's aggressive dogs.

And shortly thereafter,
McAfee claims

he discovered the dogs
had been poisoned.

Unsurprisingly, Belizean police

looked at McAfee
as the prime suspect.

McAfee publicly denied
any involvement

in his neighbor's death.

- Did I k*ll Mr. Faull? No.
- Let me be clear.

But privately,
he implied a different story.

One day, he leaned in to me,
and he says, "Son..."

He said, "You know how much
I love my dogs, right?"

And I said, "Yes, sir.
I know you love your dogs."

'Cause he loved them dogs.

And he said, you know...

"I'll just leave it at that."

Fearing arrest, McAfee
flees Belize for Guatemala,

but he's detained upon arrival

for entering the country
illegally.

McAfee finally surfaced
in Guatemala...

How many people
at the checkpoint?

...where he was arrested.

- John, where are you going?
- To jail.

McAfee fled the U.S.

after his "sky kite" game
k*lled two people.

Now he's fleeing Belize after
his neighbor winds up dead.

It's a pattern that would
keep repeating itself.

In Guatemala, he suffers

what appears to be
a serious medical incident,

but in reality,
McAfee has pulled off a move

worthy of "Ocean's 11."

He had faked a heart attack

and soon after is deported
back to the United States.

- I'm going to America.
- I'm very glad to be going home.

- John, any regrets?!
- No regrets.

No regrets.

The heart issue...
Was that a ruse?

- Did you do that to...?
- I'm sorry?

The issues with your heart.

- Of course it was ruse.
- Get real.

He was a master escape artist.

If you doubted him, you just
looked like a fool in the end.

It's like he's continually
playing a chess game

with everyone and everything.

It's after he leaves Belize

that McAfee begins
to speak publicly

about his theory
that the government of Belize

is out to get him.

He said, "The Belizean
government's after me,

and if something happens to me,
I'm gonna release

all this information
to news sources worldwide."

The Belize government has denied

all allegations of corruption

and any involvement
in McAfee's death.

After he fled,
the Belizean prime minister

called McAfee "bonkers."

Online conspiracy theorists
still debate

whether the Belizean government
played any part in his death.

But John McAfee
would soon start spreading

another conspiracy theory

about a government
much closer to home.

He accuses the U.S. government
of trying to k*ll him.

- He was terrified for his life.
- Somebody was hunting him down.

I don't believe
he k*lled himself.

I believe he was m*rder*d.

In June 2021,
tech entrepreneur John McAfee

is found hanging
in his Spanish prison cell.

While some people are convinced
McAfee k*lled himself,

alternate theories begin
to take over the Internet.

After stating
on multiple occasions

that he would not
take his own life,

Internet security mogul and
conspiracy theorist John McAfee

was found dead
of an apparent suicide.

Some wonder if a foreign
government had got to him,

but across the Internet, another
theory was going viral...

The so-called Deep State
had k*lled him

because he was going to
expose their darkest secrets.

He's dead. They k*lled him.

♪♪

He certainly didn't believe
that if something happened

it would be by his own hand.

Messages from U.S. officials
saying, in effect,

"We're coming for you, McAfee."

Does the government
have the power to do this?

Absolutely.

You cannot
make this crap up, folks.

This is... This is real life.

In a whole bunch
of online communities,

there's kind of a constant
conversation going on about,

you know, who
the Deep State is targeting

and what really happened to some
of these high-profile deaths.

They have headlines like

"Deep State true believer McAfee
dead, as he predicted."

McAfee said
if he ever wound up dead

by suicide in a prison cell,

he was whacked
by the U.S. government,

which was pursuing him
for tax evasion.

Another article written
by a really prominent

conspiracy theorist reads,

"John McAfee's wife
claims Spanish authorities

are overseeing
a cover-up of his death."

John McAfee thought

the government was after him,
big-time,

and he had terrible fears
about it.

And you couldn't help but think
that some of it was true.

John McAfee had spent
nearly four years in Belize,

but when tensions
reached a boiling point

when he was suspected
in his neighbor's m*rder,

he returns to the U.S. in 2012.

By the time
he gets back to the U.S.,

McAfee is paranoid.

He figured the Belizean
government was after him,

drug traffickers,
maybe the U.S. government.

Who knows who else.

He was so worried
about his own safety

that he hired a crack team
of former military personnel

to serve as
his personal bodyguards.

♪♪

- His place was like a compound.
- I walk in.

It seemed like
a dangerous environment.

Filled with smoke like a casino.

He had holes in the walls
all by his room

where he had shot holes
through the wall.

So I was like, "Man,
I got to get out of here."

You know, in the SEAL teams,
we don't play that game.

McAfee would stay in his room
for days trading cryptocurrency.

- He always seemed very intense.
- He was always thinking.

He would just sit there
and just stare

and just tap his foot, you know?

The early days of cryptocurrency

were a nearly lawless world

full of conspiracy theorists
and anti-government outlaws.

And it's here,
in the dark reaches of the Web,

that online investigators
begin digging into the theory

that the U.S. government
had him k*lled.

When I got this case,

I was like,
"I really know a lot about him."

You know, I had been immersed
in John McAfee's world

for... eight or nine years.

I was a member
of these Telegram channels

where people would
talk about John McAfee.

My impression
was that he liked infamy.

I think he enjoyed the renegade,

rebellious kind of persona
that he portrayed,

but his persona
that he portrayed

was so hard to like.

Especially as, like, a woman
in the cryptocurrency space,

he was just so... aggressive.

McAfee's alpha-male personality

helps make him an early
cryptocurrency influencer.

He had a million followers,

and 75% of them
were doing what he suggested.

John McAfee was a figurehead
in the cryptocurrency community.

I call them "crypto bros."

They're all very machismo.

They're all very conspiratorial.

Crypto wasn't just a way
to make money.

For McAfee, it's also part
of a political movement.

For the last couple of years
of his life,

he had reinvented himself
as a messiah

in the crypto
libertarian movement.

McAfee was an early booster
of cryptocurrencies.

Publicly,
he was extolling the virtue

of a decentralized,
private currency,

but really what was going on
is that he found a way

to move his money far away from
the prying eyes of government.

He saw crypto
as the freest commodity.

He wanted others
to enjoy the freedoms

that we're supposed to have,
you see.

With all existing
fiat currencies,

you must trust somebody,
the U.S. government.

They own you. They control you.

Cryptocurrency, you don't need

anybody's permission
to do anything.

I can send whatever I want
anywhere instantly.

It's all part of McAfee's
libertarian philosophy

of limited government
and maximum freedom.

John McAfee
was a big libertarian.

He tried twice to run

on the Libertarian Party
banner for president.

McAfee was seen as
an outlaw, a truth-teller,

somebody that the MSM
and the politicians

were trying to silence.

Elected officials, presidents,
Congress, whatever.

The true power in the government
is not those people.

The Seep State,
which is the career,

99% of our government,
rules everything.

He bragged about avoiding taxes.

I have not paid taxes
for eight years.

I've made no secret of it.
I have not filed returns.

When privacy coins
are widely used,

governments will no longer
be able to collect income taxes.

And as McAfee's
anti-government rants

become more and more popular,

his fears grow
that he's now a target.

He was terrified for his life.

I started to realize
that somebody

was following John McAfee.

Somebody was hunting him down.

Somebody had it out for him.

I would see certain things,
like these black SUVs

circling the property
over and over and over.

That doesn't happen to anybody
unless you're being watched

or somebody wants to appear
to threaten you.

As the months went by,

what other people call paranoia,

I call complacency
on their behalf.

In June 2019,

McAfee's paranoia
pushes him to the edge

and he flees the country again,

this time for Cuba.

And while on the run,
he announces that he's amassed

31 terabytes
of incriminating evidence

on his enemies
in the so-called Deep State.

He threatens to release
the information

if anything happens to him.

He was very involved

in his own fairy tale
of being this, like...

"on the run,
everybody's out to get me.

I have all these secrets
about everybody,

and they're afraid
I'm gonna release

31 terabytes of data
to, you know, the world

about all the corruption
in the U.S. government."

He tweeted, "Why am I keeping
this information private

if it could help the world?

Because I am a dead man
the moment it's released."

McAfee even permanently marks
his own body

to let the world know

if anything happens to him
He didn't do it.

He got out a tattoo
of "Whackd" on his arm.

He's obviously
telling the world,

"Look.
I'm not gonna k*ll myself."

He would tell me all the time.

He said, "Jimmy,
you know, if I die,

somebody poisoned me,
somebody k*lled me.

Do you understand that?"
And I'd say, "Yes, sir."

But in October 2020,

the long arm of
the U.S. justice system

finally catches up with him,

proving his paranoia
isn't total fantasy.

Just because you're paranoid

doesn't mean the government's
not out to get you.

And in McAfee's case, they were.

McAfee is charged with
multiple counts of tax evasion.

Which he basically confessed
to publicly, repeatedly.

But here they were not
looking to k*ll him.

They were looking
to prosecute him.

But once again,
McAfee flees authorities

and he heads to Europe.

He was always trying
to play that chess game

and be one step ahead.

But this time it's checkmate,

and he's arrested
by Spanish authorities

while trying to board
a flight to Istanbul.

Nine months later, he'd be dead
of an apparent suicide.

And his death will ignite
a wave of speculation

connected to
one of the Internet's

most infamous
conspiracy theories.

It was instantly spread
around as, "They took him out.

They did to him
what they did to Epstein."

It was just there immediately,
and it was everywhere.

When antivirus-software pioneer
John McAfee is found dead

in a Spanish prison
in June 2021,

media reports around the world

only focus on
the official cause of death.

Antivirus-software entrepreneur
John McAfee

has reportedly been found dead
in his Spanish jail cell.

All signs point to suicide.

But online conspiracy theorists

refuse to believe
he k*lled himself.

They say John McAfee was
m*rder*d by the U.S. government.

To try and separate
fact from fiction

in this expl*sive allegation,

Internet investigators
begin examining

McAfee's digital footprint
while he was incarcerated.

The events leading up
to his death are important.

It's always crucial
to look at the hours,

the days,
maybe even the months prior.

In the first months
of captivity,

McAfee begins sending tweets
from prison.

They appear to paint a picture

of a man familiar
to those who know him,

defiant in
the face of adversity.

His tweet is this.

"I am content in here.
I have friends.

The food is good. All is well.

Know that if I hang myself,
a la Epstein,

it will be no fault of mine."

So at face value,
this tweet makes it sound

like he's making it clear

that if he is ever found
hanging in his cell

that it was not his own doing.

He is putting the idea out there
in people's minds now.

But McAfee's lawyer claims
his client was isolated

as part of a larger plot
to break him.

My name is Nishay Sanan.

I do federal
criminal defense work

all over the country.

John McAfee's wife, Janice,

asked if I'd be interested
in representing him

in both the tax criminal case
in Tennessee

and in the
securities fraud case.

We had a lot of problems
with this prison,
dealing with this prison.

I wasn't even able
to go see him.

They were blocking my ability
as his U.S. attorney,

basically saying
I'm not his attorney in Spain.

They didn't want him
in a big prison

where he would become popular

and, again,
where he could use the media.

And, you know, if you follow
the conspiracy theories,

if he was m*rder*d,
it's a lot easier

to do it in a small prison
than a big prison.

McAfee's wife, Janice,

claims he's determined
to fight his case to the end.

Three days before he died,
she tweeted this.

"Now the U.S. authorities
are determined

to have John die in prison
to make an example of him

for speaking out
against the corruption

within their
government agencies."

Janice was certain
that John was being targeted.

On the morning of June 23, 2021,

John McAfee is told he has lost

his extradition appeal
to the U.S.

John McAfee was not suicidal.

I spoke with him a few hours
before he was found dead.

We spoke about
the court's decision

to extradite him to the U.S.

It did not come as a surprise
to either of us.

We were prepared
for that decision

and had a plan of action
already in place

to appeal that decision.

Immediately after John McAfee's
death is announced,

one online conspiracy community
in particular

begins lighting up the Internet.

A lot of right-wing
online communities

really freaked out
over McAfee's death.

As 4chan user posted,
"It was DEFCON 1."

When I first heard
about John's death,

one of the first things
that came to mind

was the similarities

between John's death
and Jeffrey Epstein's death.

They both allegedly
hung themselves

in prison or in a jail.

And I thought to myself,

could there possibly be
a connection between these two?

John McAfee was super into

the "Jeffrey Epstein
didn't k*ll himself,"

like, conspiracy rabbit hole

that, you know, is really
prevalent on the Internet.

And he made a lot
of references to that,

you know, the whole controversy,

including, like,
Hillary Clinton was involved

and Pizzagate
is somehow involved

and Jeffrey Epstein
didn't k*ll himself.

Like many online
conspiracy theorists,

McAfee believed convicted
pedophile Jeffrey Epstein

was m*rder*d by
the so-called Deep State

because he had
damaging information

about high-profile people.

Now McAfee himself is dead,

and conspiracy message boards
around the world

begin spreading the theory

that he was taken out
because he knew too much.

Within a half-hour
of McAfee's death,

an Instagram account
was opened in his name,

and it posted
only the letter "Q."

Naturally, QAnon went hog wild.

In 2019, McAfee had claimed
he had amassed

31 terabytes
of incriminating evidence

about some of the most powerful
people in the world.

He said he had
this compromising information

on politicians, media members,
finance elites...

All of the same people
who are caught up

in the "pedophile rings"
and the Deep State.

McAfee said if he died
under suspicious circumstances,

a so-called "dead man's switch"
would be triggered

and the information
would be released online.

A dead man's switch
is literally a switch

that will be activated
by your death.

You know, the physical version

is sort of the switch
that you're holding,

that, when you die,
your body releases it

and the b*mb goes off
or the nukes launch.

There are real things like that.

There are military dead man's
switches that we know about.

So the John McAfee
dead man's switch

might be something that triggers

if he doesn't post on Instagram
for two days.

It is intrinsically plausible

that John McAfee could have
had that dead man's switch.

He is a technical genius.

He knows his way
around programming.

He's also very wealthy,

and he goes in the circles
of the wealthy.

So it is plausible
that he could have gotten

all of this information,
used his expertise

to design this system
that would protect him

or at the very least
take out all of these people

if he himself got taken out.

Followers of the right-wing
QAnon conspiracy

instantly latch on
to his "Q" Instagram post

as the signal
they had been waiting for.

QAnon is built around an event
called the Great Awakening,

and this will be the mass purge
of the Deep State,

the mass arrests, the great
cleansing of the Western soul.

And they've been promising it
for years,

and it was always
about to happen.

So when you have McAfee dying
and then posting a giant "Q,"

they're looking at this
as an unmistakable sign from Q

that the Awakening is upon us.

"Here we go. At last."

In the immediate aftermath
of the "Q" image being posted,

the sleuths of QAnon

immediately looked
at the metadata for the image.

They looked at the pixels
for the image.

They started looking
at all the different ways

that the dead man's switch,

that the terabytes
of information

could have been hidden.

They're all thinking,
"We just have to figure it out.

This is the last clue
that he left us,

that the normies
and the mainstream media

will never be able
to figure out,

but we'll be able to figure out
because we're special."

They looked into the metadata
of the image

and found what they claimed
was a cryptographic key

that could have unlocked
this dead man's switch.

What's more, within days,
a website popped up

bearing a countdown
that many thought

would be the release
of that trove of information.

And as the countdown clock
winds down,

excitement reaches
a fever pitch.

Some believe the crown jewels
of Deep State secrets

are finally going to be exposed.

Crypto fam, listen up.

3 hours, 41 minutes

until the potential
John McAfee dead's man switch

information being released.

Stay tuned.
I will be reporting on this.

"Here's all this information,

and we've been fighting
to get it out."

And they look at McAfee
as kind of a fallen soldier

who gave his life for the cause

and he was taken out
by these people

and now he's going to
expose them.

But like everything
associated with John McAfee,

the countdown clock soon begins
to look like more of a hoax.

This website
with the countdown clock

claimed at the end of 28 days

there would be
a live video link,

also that something would be
uploaded to the blockchain

which could never be removed.

None of this amounted
to anything.

Nothing got uploaded
to the blockchain.

There was no video
at the end of the countdown.

John was a famous liar.

Even when he was saying things

like that he had
this dead man's switch

and he was gonna release it,

people on Twitter loved it,
right?

'Cause they're all into that,

"Get Hillary Clinton.
Get, you know...

Take down the pedophile elites."

You know, they're into all that.

Online sleuths see it all
as part of a long pattern.

I think it's very possible
this 31 terabytes of data

was total bullshit
from the beginning.

But even as McAfee's
dead man's switch is a bust,

new questions arise
about his death.

Why k*ll yourself

until you've lost
every last try, right?

I don't believe
he k*lled himself.

I believe he was m*rder*d.

We will likely never know
if John McAfee actually had

31 terabytes
of incriminating evidence

against
the so-called Deep State,

but the fact McAfee's
treasure trove of secrets

never materialized
doesn't stop speculation

swirling around
his state of mind.

If convicted,
McAfee faces the possibility

of serious prison time.

The U.S. government had
charged him with tax evasion,

and they added on
additional charges of fraud

related to his crypto trading.

But as online investigators

dig into the last months
of his life,

they begin to paint
a much different picture

of his legal battles
than had been reported.

John knew that even if
we had lost the first round

of extradition
on the Tennessee case,

there was still
round two and round three

on the higher levels of court,
even in the Spanish system.

So we were still
six to nine months out

before, in my opinion,
he would have ever step foot

in the United States.

Top legal experts
back in the U.S. agree.

McAfee still had many
legal moves left to make.

My name is Hope Lefeber.

I am a criminal defense lawyer.

Mr. McAfee was facing
a slew of charges.

He was charged with conspiracy

to commit commodities
and securities fraud.

But when things seem impossible,
then you cut a deal.

You hedge your bets.

John McAfee had many defenses
available to him.

Why k*ll yourself

until you've lost
every last try, right?

Problems with the law
are nothing new for John McAfee.

There had been lawsuits
and criminal charges

throughout his chaotic career.

But he always found ways
to get out of them.

And even if he was extradited
to the U.S.,

experts note legal precedents

around cryptocurrency
are uncertain.

On paper, it looks terrible

and it looks like
he will be facing

8 to 12 years or possibly more
in jail.

However, it has not
ever been determined

by Congress or the Supreme Court

precisely what
cryptocurrency is.

Believe it or not,
there is no standing precedent

that controls right now
on these issues.

If he wanted to be the martyr
and commit suicide,

why wouldn't he wait till
he got back to the United States

and do it in a U.S. prison cell
and shove it up their asses?

He said,
"I'm not gonna k*ll myself.

If I'm found hung or found dead,
I was Epstein'd."

That's the way I look at this.

I don't think
he would have k*lled himself

in a Spanish prison, and I don't
believe he k*lled himself.

I believe he was m*rder*d.

And when online investigators

begin looking into
his alleged suicide note,

even more questions emerge.

There was a suicide note found,

and he was hanging
from the bunk bed.

John's suicide note...
Janice tweeted a copy of it.

You know your family members'
handwriting.

If you laid out
a bunch of pieces of paper

with each one of your
family members' writing on it,

you would be able to say,
"That's my sisters.

That's my brothers.

That's my dad's.
That's my mom's."

When I saw John McAfee's
suicide note, I said,

"That's not John McAfee's,
and that's that."

It's not.

The handwriting
in John's suicide note

is very hard to read.

So I did dig into what the
suicide note said on Twitter.

So I found the most popular one,
and this is it.

It says,
"I am a phantom parasite.

The present moments..."
And there's a question mark

because the handwriting's
terrible.

"I use it to attain my own ends.

Instead of fully living it,
I want to control my future,

which does not exist.

By using the present
and the past as controller

through the knowledge
of my past,

which are mere ashes of memory."

And then there's a bunch
of things, like, crossed out.

These are the things
that are crossed out.

"But the here and now
are beyond me.

And all reality is truth.
And truth is immutable.

I use it to attain my own will.

I use it to attain my own ends."

So the things
that he crosses out

lead people to believe
that there's some sort of

hidden message
in the suicide note.

People start taking
random ciphers from, like,

a WikiLeaks tweet that was done
on the same day that John died,

think that there's
some sort of hidden message

to the suicide note.

And online sleuths
keep uncovering

more and more information
to help resolve the case.

They parse through
the physical evidence

and can't believe
what they find.

We don't have
any crime-scene photos.

We have the word of
basically one person in Spain

telling us
what they want us to hear.

No one will ever know
what was going through

John McAfee's head
in the final days of his life,

but forensic science can often

definitively explain
how someone died.

So when online investigators
turn to Spanish authorities

for answers about
his cause of death,

they are shocked
at what they find.

When we're missing key pieces
of evidence in a case,

we have to think
outside the box a little bit.

If we can examine
the statements made

by those who maybe worked
in the prison where John died,

those who worked
at the medical examiner

where he was autopsied...

If we can look
at all of their statements

and see what matches up
and what's consistent,

that may help us
nail down some of the facts.

Key pieces of evidence
are not publicly available.

We don't have the hard facts
surrounding his death.

We don't have an autopsy report.

We don't have
any crime-scene photos.

We have the word of
basically one person in Spain

telling us
what they want us to hear.

And that may be the truth,
but we don't know.

The Spanish government
has refused

to release McAfee's body
or an autopsy report.

John's family has a lawsuit

filed against
the Spanish authorities

because they won't release
his body

or the autopsy report to them.

The courts in Spain sided
with the Spanish authorities

and agreed that the authorities

did not need to release
the autopsy report

or John's body to his family.

After that ruling,
John's family filed an appeal,

and currently that appeal
is ongoing in the court system

and has not been settled yet.

With so little
physical evidence,

another wild theory begins
to gain traction online.

Did John McAfee
pull the ultimate great escape

and fake his own death?

John McAfee
did not k*ll himself.

He may have been m*rder*d,
but since when is there no body?

I mean, what are we talking
about? Osama bin Laden here?

It is very rare
that there's no body.

It's very rare
there's no funeral,

there's no...
There's no certificates.

There's nothing...
Nothing has come about it.

You would have someone
come forward and say,

"Yeah, we cremated him
in this certain prison.

We cremated him.
I saw his body."

Nobody's saying that.
There's nobody.

It's a seemingly
implausible idea

that goes viral in online forums
and social-media posts

when McAfee's Belizean
ex-girlfriend

is featured
in a Netflix documentary.

She claims he called her in the
days after his alleged suicide.

I'm not saying
John McAfee is alive,

but I definitely think
it's very strange

that this girl just goes,
"Oh, yeah, by the way,

John McAfee called me."

Because he always
was calling her.

It could be a flat-out lie.

But why? Why say that?

And it is something that
John could not resist but to do,

because he would expect her
to say that on camera

for everybody to realize
that he was still alive.

But when Internet sleuths
begin digging into the facts,

they question how someone could
pull off a stunt so complex.

The first thing that John
would have to figure out

is who can help him with
this plan that he can trust.

It's going to rely on him

finding at least one
correctional officer,

at a minimum,
that he could bribe

and who would keep this a secret
and help John escape the jail.

Upon getting out of the jail,
he needs a change of clothes.

He needs somebody to pick him up
and get him away from the jail

before it's discovered
that he's missing.

Going back to the jail scenario,

there was a body hanging dead
in John's cell.

Someone's got to be
in on that plan

to make it look like
a suicide hanging.

John would need people inside
the medical examiner's office

to state that whatever body they
autopsied was actually his body.

So then he's got to figure out,

"How do I get out
of this country?

Is it gonna be by air?"

If so, well,
he probably needs a passport.

In theory, with his money,

maybe he can keep just traveling
from place to place.

But the money is another aspect.
He's dead.

So in theory,

nobody should be accessing
his accounts from overseas.

And I honestly think
the biggest threat of all

would be keeping
all of the people

who were involved in this plan
silent about it.

I find it near impossible

to believe
that out of those six people,

none of them
would leak something.

The idea that McAfee somehow
made one last great escape

may have little evidence
to support it,

but it's an appealing thought
for his many followers online.

♪♪

There's just people
who don't want to accept

that he took his own life.

It's like a game,

and there were people
that got caught up in it,

and it was dangerous.

A prediction of his own death,

a suspicious suicide note,
the possibility John McAfee

could have fought his legal case
for years.

For many doubters
of the official story,

the facts all point
in one direction...

Like Epstein before him,
McAfee didn't k*ll himself.

But when Internet investigators
begin digging deeper

into his final months,
they uncover evidence of a man

who appears ready
to end his life.

When John first got locked up,
he was on, he was defiant.

But as I analyzed his tweets,
as the months went on,

he got more and more

sort of depressive,
like he was losing hope.

He doesn't speak the language.
He has nobody to talk to.

He's feeling very melancholy.
He has no human contact.

He constantly had
this entourage around him.

This is a man
who needed social interaction.

Another key piece of evidence
that conspiracy theorists

conveniently overlook is,

according to
Spanish authorities,

John McAfee tried
to commit suicide

about four months
before he died.

This was a few days
before he k*lled himself,

on June 10th.

"There is much sorrow in prison
disguised as hostility.

The sorrow is plainly visible,

even in the most angry of faces.

And my remaining assets
are all seized,

my friends evaporated
through the fear of association.

I have nothing.
But I regret nothing."

And I feel like
that's like a suicide note.

But the facts surrounding
his death haven't stopped

John McAfee's myth
from living on

for those who worshiped him.

There's just people
who don't want to accept

that he took his own life
and that he's dead.

And so any little tidbit
they can find

that they feel
supports the opposite,

meaning that he's still alive

and/or that he didn't
actually commit suicide,

they just take hold of it
and won't let it go.

There's a lot of
fragile male ego

out there in the crypto-sphere.

These guys don't want to believe

that somebody they perceive
as, like, "the crypto king"

could k*ll themselves.

They don't want to see

this person that they idolize
as weak.

For some people
with a really intense

distrust of the government,

John McAfee is an understandable
cult hero.

And so when he dies,
a lot of that hope,

a lot of that optimism
dies, too.

So for a lot of them,

I think it's incumbent
for their philosophy

that they find some other
explanation apart from suicide.

But the truth
about McAfee's death

may have a simple explanation.

He was a showman with
one last trick up his sleeve.

John McAfee was a guy
who loved to flout the rules.

If he could shock you, well,
he did it all the better.

A con loves to
get one over on people.

Sometimes people will con
and fool people

or create a wild goose chase

just to make people feel stupid,

just to have it dead-end,
just to be able to say,

"Oh. You fell for that?
What's wrong with you?"

It's like a game,

and there were people
that got caught up in it,

and it was dangerous.