The Unresolved Questions Surrounding John McAfee's Death: His Widow Continues the Search for Answers

Nearly three years have passed since John McAfee died in a Barcelona prison in June 2023, yet his widow Janice McAfee remains unable to find closure. Despite a Catalan court ruling in September 2023 that determined his death was suicide—effectively closing the official investigation—Janice insists that fundamental questions remain unanswered. Working freelance jobs to support herself while living in an undisclosed location in Spain, she has spent the intervening years trying to access the autopsy results that authorities have refused to release. In an exclusive interview, she explained the weight of this uncertainty and her determination to uncover the truth about what happened to the cryptocurrency advocate and anti-virus pioneer.

The Circumstances of Death Remain Shrouded in Mystery

When John McAfee was discovered in his prison cell, the circumstances of his apparent death raised several troubling questions for those closest to him. Janice describes inconsistencies in the official account that have haunted her investigation into his final moments. According to prison records and medical personnel, John McAfee was found with a ligature around his neck, yet witnesses reported detecting vital signs—a weak pulse and breathing—when he was first discovered.

The emergency response that followed has become a point of contention. Janice, drawing on her training as a certified nursing assistant, points out that standard CPR protocol requires immediately clearing the airway before beginning chest compressions. Yet from the available prison video documentation, she observed that medical personnel appeared to begin resuscitation attempts without first removing the ligature from around his neck. “If someone has something around their neck, that’s the last thing you want to do,” she explained. “The first thing is to clear the obstruction, but from the jail video, that didn’t happen.”

These procedural concerns have fueled her doubt about the suicide conclusion. While Janice acknowledges she is speculating, she cannot dismiss the possibility that negligence or a more sinister explanation may have contributed to his death. What troubles her most is that she remains unable to verify independently what actually occurred. “I don’t know if he committed suicide or not. We talked every day after he was imprisoned near Barcelona. I don’t know how he was hanged, whether it was with a rope or a shoelace. The jail report said that when they found him, he had a pulse and was breathing—a weak pulse, but a pulse is a pulse.”

The Financial Legacy of John McAfee Remains a Complex Puzzle

When John McAfee resigned from the antivirus company bearing his name in 1994 and sold his shares, he amassed a fortune estimated at over $100 million. Yet by the time of his death, his official net worth had reportedly shrunk to approximately $4 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. This dramatic erosion of wealth raises questions about where his vast fortune went.

In 2019, John McAfee publicly claimed he had no money and could not satisfy a $25 million judgment from a wrongful death lawsuit. However, the following year, U.S. authorities arrested him on tax evasion charges, alleging that he and his associates had generated approximately $11 million from cryptocurrency promotion schemes. While imprisoned, John McAfee insisted to his Twitter followers that he possessed no hidden cryptocurrency assets. “I don’t have anything. But I have no regrets,” he posted.

According to Janice, John McAfee died without a will or formal estate. This legal vacuum means that no financial inheritance will likely pass to her, particularly given the U.S. judgment against him. Janice has learned that her husband deliberately kept her in the dark regarding certain financial matters—including rumors of secret collections and documents—ostensibly to protect her from danger. The irony is bitter: denied access to any assets and left without knowledge of what her husband may have possessed, she now supports herself through irregular freelance work.

The cost of pursuing an independent autopsy—approximately €30,000—remains far beyond her financial reach. Yet this sum represents her only realistic path to obtaining answers about John McAfee’s death, as Spanish authorities have steadfastly refused to release the official autopsy findings. “For more than two years I have not only had to deal with the tragedy of John’s death, but it has been difficult to move on because the authorities have refused to release the results of the autopsy into his death,” she stated. “I have tried and tried but they won’t let me see it.”

John McAfee’s Legacy Through the Eyes of a Witness and Friend

The journalist conducting this interview met John McAfee and Janice for the first time at a blockchain conference in Malta in 2018—a moment that left an indelible impression. The gathering embodied the chaotic energy of the early cryptocurrency movement, yet John McAfee’s presence brought an unexpected clarity. During a backstage conversation, the interviewer was struck by Janice’s quiet composure and protective demeanor, qualities reminiscent of other powerful personalities carefully guarding someone of international significance.

That evening led to an invitation to a private yacht in Valletta Harbour, where an unexpected friendship formed. Years later, as the interviewer maintained contact with the couple and conducted periodic interviews during the pandemic, John McAfee had apparently confided that this journalist was someone he considered a genuine friend—a distinction the interviewer credits largely to being “the only one who didn’t smoke,” according to John’s humorous observation.

Challenging the Public Narrative About John McAfee

In 2025, Netflix released a documentary titled “Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee,” which portrayed John and Janice as fugitives evading global authorities. Yet Janice contests this framing as a fundamental mischaracterization of their story. “This is more a story about the reporters themselves, who tried to paint a public figure through sensationalist narratives but failed to do so. They focused attention when the focus should have been on the real story of why John McAfee was willing to be a so-called fugitive… or why I stayed with him,” she explained.

She worries that sensationalism may overshadow the genuine reasons for John McAfee’s choices and his beliefs about governmental overreach. The documentary’s framing, in her view, reduces a complex philosophical stance to mere spectacle. “People forget very quickly and I understand why because the world moves so fast these days. I just hope he is remembered correctly, that’s the least he deserves,” Janice said, underscoring her desire to preserve an accurate historical record.

The Path Forward: Seeking Closure and Honoring Final Wishes

Janice McAfee has not abandoned her quest for understanding. Her stated goal remains strikingly modest yet challenging to achieve: to obtain the independent autopsy report that would clarify the medical facts of John McAfee’s death, to cremate her husband’s body as he wished, and finally to move forward with her life.

“I supported myself by doing odd jobs here and there; that was not important. What was important was what I could do for John. I was not the victim—John was the victim—and I needed the autopsy report, not to continue my fight with the Spanish authorities, but to know what happened to him,” she explained.

She remains a U.S. citizen, yet she has little incentive to return to America given the legal complications stemming from the financial judgments against John McAfee and her uncertainty about her own legal status. Spain has become her refuge, though not by choice—it is simply where she finds herself unable to leave until she obtains the answers she deserves.

Janice McAfee’s situation underscores a painful reality: even in our hyperconnected world of instant information and relentless scrutiny, a widow can be left without answers about the most fundamental question—what happened to her husband. She seeks neither revenge nor justice; she seeks only clarity and the opportunity to honor John McAfee’s final wishes. That this remains unresolved nearly three years after his death stands as a testament to the bureaucratic barriers that can obscure truth from those who desperately need to know it.