McAfee ended his life before being extradited
John McAfee, the tech innovator whose name is synonymous with antivirus software, died by suicide on Wednesday hours after a court-approved his extradition from Spain to face U.S. tax evasion charges. He was 75 years old.
The pioneer of this antivirus software ended his life by hanging himself in a prison cell after suffering from depression for nine months. Reuters quoted his lawyer, Javier Villalba, as saying.
Spanish police say doctors have tried unsuccessfully. "Everything indicates that McAfee himself ended his life," the Catalan judiciary said in a statement.
Antivirus guru John McAfee has been controversial for most of his life. The multi-billion-dollar antivirus software industry started with his hands. At one point, he sold McAfee Associates Inc. to technology giant Intel for more than 7.6 billion dollars.
Hailed from Gloucestershire, England, the technology entrepreneur came to prominence in the 1978s when he created and published the McAfee virus scan. And for inventing the world's first commercial anti-virus software, Reuters called it "larger than life software mogul."
John McAfee was arrested in Spain in October last year while boarding a flight to Turkey. He was accused of failing to file a four-year tax return despite earning millions of dollars from various consultancies, proceeds from lectures, cryptocurrencies and the sale of his life story.
Spain's top court on Wednesday morning granted him extradition to the United States. But McAfee ended everything himself.
