John David McAfee (75), the founder of the anti-virus software marketed under his name, was found dead at a Spanish prison on Thursday.
McAfee's stormy life was the subject of a 2016 documentary film Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee.
The documentary focuses on the part of McAfee's life in Central American country of Belize. He moved to Belize in 2008. In April 2012, national police raided McAfee's estate based on suspicions of drug manufacture, trafficking. Later that year, McAfee's neighbour Greg Faull was murdered and McAfee went into hiding before crossing the border to Guatemala and being deported back to the United States. The documentary suggests that McAfee was involved in the murder due to a feud between him and Faull over McAfee's dogs.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nanette Burstein, who directed the film, was intrigued by the tech trailblazer's eccentric lifestyle. She travelled to Belize to interview locals, employees, gangsters, and many of the teenage girlfriends McAfee kept, according to a report by The Daily Beast. Some of those young women, who say they accepted McAfee’s financial support in exchange for living with him as his girlfriends, also shared details about McAfee's scandalous sex life--some of which is featured in the documentary.
The documentary also featured an account by Allison Adonizio, a biologist who believes McAfee drugged and sexually assaulted her while she was working for him on a pharmaceutical project. Multiple news reports claimed he wanted to research bacteria and develop life-saving antibiotics while in Belize.
However, McAfee was never charged with any crime in Belize and at the time he described the documentary as fiction.