There’s a long, winding road between developing wildly successful antivirus software and burying yourself in sand with a cardboard box over your head to evade police. Tech millionaire John McAfee took that road, and Running with the Devil is the story of what happened when that road (somehow) took an even more dramatic turn.
Running with the Devil kicks off in Belize in 2012, when McAfee contacts two journalists who agree to follow him while he’s in hiding, wanted for the death of his neighbor. From there, a series of chaotic events befall the film crew: McAfee drags them to Guatemala and enters illegally using the cameras as a shield to prevent extradition, claiming he’s seeking asylum. Then he fakes a heart attack and is deported to the United States, leaving the filmmakers to worry if they’ve aided and abetted a killer’s escape. Five years after that, McAfee is still a fugitive in the United States and even tries to run for president — spoiler alert, it doesn’t work out. From there, he hires a ghostwriter to document his story, driven by a seemingly insatiable urge to be as infamous as possible. Here’s what you need to know about McAfee and Running with the Devil.
Before all of the police evasion and megalomaniacal attempts at fame, McAfee was a computer programmer and businessman who founded the antivirus software company McAfee. Originally from England, McAfee’s childhood was full of abuse and trauma. (His father reportedly committed suicide when he was 15, though McAfee’s ghostwriter later said they believe it was McAfee who killed him.) In his adult life, McAfee started his career as a programmer at NASA and would eventually go on to found his own company, which Intel bought for a cool $7 billion. Though he spent that part of his life sober, he eventually fell into drugs, alcohol and a life of hedonism, which is where Running with the Devil begins.
Details of the situation are contested, but authorities claim that McAfee (who was known for having a violent, reactive temper) murdered his Belizean neighbor as an act of revenge for poisoning McAfee’s dogs. The event sparked a multiyear run from the law. After his extradition to the United States, McAfee left again before any charges were brought against him. With his film crew (as well as a ton of drugs and semiautomatic weapons), he sailed around the Caribbean islands and Florida Keys, eventually making his way to the Dominican Republic where learned he was being charged with racketeering, tax evasion and insider trading. He used his British passport to return to Europe and was eventually arrested in Spain.
Once McAfee was arrested in Spain, he faced up to 30 years in prison for his crimes. Shortly after his arrest, he was found dead in a prison cell. The circumstances around his death are still contested.
