Exclusive: 2 years after John McAfee’s death, widow Janice is broke and needs answers
Janice McAfee, the widow of tech impresario John McAfee, is still in the midst of grief. She is doing “odd jobs to feed herself,” has run out of funds, and still doesn’t know what really happened to her husband.
Since the death of crypto guru and antivirus pioneer husband John McAfee in a Barcelona prison more than two years ago, she has remained in Spain in an undisclosed location and has only been saved from homelessness by the kindness of friends.
She can’t move on because she still doesn’t know what happened to her husband in spite of a September ruling this year from a Catalan court that John McAfee died by suicide and the case was effectively closed.
In an exclusive Zoom interview with Magazine, she explained her current situation.
“For more than two years, I’ve not only had to deal with the tragedy of John’s death, but it’s so hard to move on because the authorities refuse to release the autopsy of his death. I have tried and tried, but they will not let me see it.
“There is the opportunity of an independent autopsy, but that will cost 30,000 euros, and I don’t have the money to pay for it. All I want is to see his body for myself and know that really happened.”
“Not having the money myself to make the decision to find out what really happened is hard, but I’m hoping that giving this interview will give people the opportunity to know what’s really going on. I still have people contacting me who still can’t believe he’s dead,” she says.
What happened to John McAfee’s $100-million fortune?
Although John was worth more than $100 million after he resigned from antivirus company McAfee in 1994 and sold his stock, his official fortune had dwindled to an estimated $4 million at the time of his death, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
He claimed in 2019 that he had no money and could not pay a $25-million court order over a wrongful death lawsuit. However, he was arrested the following year on U.S. charges of tax evasion, with authorities claiming he and his team had earned $11 million promoting cryptocurrencies. From prison, he told his 1 million Twitter followers he doesn’t have any hidden crypto. “I have nothing. But I regret nothing.”
According to Janice, her husband didn’t have a will or an estate, so there is no money, and because of the judgments against him in the U.S., it’s highly unlikely that any financial legacy will be passed on to her.
There are stories that there are secret caches and documents, but Janice was deliberately kept in the dark (about alleged “secret treasure”) by her husband, so she wouldn’t be in danger. She also has a raft of unanswered questions about John’s untimely end.
“I don’t think he thought things would have ended the way they did and nor did I. I don’t know if he committed suicide; we talked every day after he was imprisoned near Barcelona. I don’t know how he got strung up.”
“I don’t know if it was with a rope or a shoelace. In the prison report, it says that when they found him, he was still alive; he had a pulse and was breathing when they found him. A faint pulse, but a pulse is a pulse.”
Janice cannot believe that when he was found in the cell with a ligature or shoelace around his neck, medical practitioners there appeared to have attempted CPR on him without removing it first.
“I went to school to be a registered nursing assistant, and I know how to do CPR. Even in the movies, it’s the first thing you do: clear the airways.”
“If somebody has something tight around their neck, that’s the last thing you would do. The first thing would be to remove the obstruction, but you can see from the prison video that didn’t happen. I don’t know if it was negligence or stupidity; it just feels sinister. But now I’m speculating, and I don’t want to do that.”
Janice McAfee was frightened after John’s death
After her husband’s death, Janice was frightened for her safety. While John had told her that the authorities were only after him, not her, she was still worried that she would be a target for others.
“John always assured me that he wouldn’t tell me anything that would put me in danger; that was a comfort. He was public about the 31 terabytes of information that he apparently possessed, but he never shared that with me, and I have no idea where it is or whether it actually existed.”
“But I feel safe at the moment. I have nothing to hide, and I don’t even know how he really died, let alone what he possessed. If there was an independent autopsy, I can get some peace. There is an opportunity to do so, but it’s very expensive.”
I first met Janice and John at a blockchain conference in Malta in 2018. Like the crypto world at the time, it was chaos — but good chaos.
I interviewed him on stage, and it wasn’t my finest hour, or maybe it was. There was something about being near him that affected me and made me behave on stage in a more carefree manner. Maybe that’s what he could do, a Svengali of sorts.
John had been drinking whisky on the side of the stage but was sober and lucid. Janice was with him, protecting him from the thousands of people who wanted to speak to him.
She reminded me of Kim Kardashian when I interviewed her in Armenia — calm, collected and almost zen-like in her presence. I immediately liked Janice and trusted her.
Later after the on-stage interview had been completed, I was approached by a husband-and-wife camera team who was doing a documentary on crypto that was almost finished, but they would love a word with John. Could I help?
I wasn’t sure but texted Janice, and she said it was OK; John apparently liked me. I was invited to the penthouse suite and convinced the armed guard outside their room that I could vouch for the people with me. Again, not something I did every day.
John laughed when he saw me. “You again, for f–k’s sake!” But he was civil to the husband-and-wife team and invited me to join him on a private yacht in Valletta Harbour that evening.
What goes on on private yachts stays there, but we became friends there and then, mainly because I was the only one “not blowing smoke up my arse,” according to John. Further invitations would follow — notably to an island off North Carolina when he was still incognito and on the run.
We stayed in touch, and I conducted a couple of interviews with him during the pandemic when I was running a podcast. When I reached out to Janet on Twitter/X to see if she would be interested in doing her first interview, she said John considered me a friend and would be happy to do so.
Read also
Janice McAfee still wants to recover John McAfee’s body
So, that’s the backstory to this interview, but what is more important is the journey from this point on. Janice is determined to follow John’s wishes that, if died, he wanted his body to be cremated.
“His body is still in the morgue at the prison where he died. I don’t know why they decided to hold on to his body. They don’t need it. Two years ago, I had the money for an independent autopsy; a year ago, I had the money, but now I don’t.”
Also read: ‘Holy shit, I’ve seen that!’ — Coldie’s Snoop Dogg, Vitalik and McAfee NFTs: NFT Creator
“I am surviving by taking little jobs here and there to feed myself; that’s not what’s important. What matters is what I can do for John. I’m not a victim — John was the victim — and I need that autopsy report, not to continue a fight against Spanish authorities, but to know what really happened to him.”
I put it to Janice that the perception was that John had run out of time and had come to the end of the road. An extradition order to the U.S. had been made hours before his death, and it was surely going to be hard for him in a U.S. prison.
American authorities do not like people who thumb their noses at them, and an example would have been made of him. In some ways, didn’t his apparent suicide make complete sense to a proud man?
“We never talked about that. Ever. While he did tell me he wanted to be cremated, that was because he knew there were people who wanted him killed, but that’s not the point.”
“I don’t want to be on one side or the other. Just tell me what the body says. I’m not trying to seek justice — there’s no such thing on this earth any more. I just want John’s wishes to be fulfilled.”
Janice is an American citizen, but she’s understandably in no rush to go back to the U.S. when she doesn’t know what her status is.
John McAfee Netflix documentary
A Netflix documentary called Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee was released last year and portrays her and John as fugitives, which is not something that Janice thinks represents the real story.
It was more of a tale about the journalists themselves who tried to sensationalize a public figure and weren’t quite up to it. They centered themselves when the focus should have been on the real story of why McAfee felt disposed to be a so-called fugitive… or why Janice was staying with him.
“People forget very quickly, and I understand why because the world moves very fast nowadays. I just want him to be remembered properly, and that’s the least he deserves.”
Janice wants closure. She wants to cremate her husband, remember him with love, and work out what to do next.
I hope she gets her wish. Everybody deserves a chance to move on, and Janice McAfee much more than many others.
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Keir Starmer flies out of South Africa this evening with two massive issues on his agenda – a potentially manifesto-busting budget and, as it stands, an unacceptable Ukrainian peace deal.
As he prepared to depart for London, the prime minister confirmed he was dispatching national security adviser Jonathan Powell to Geneva for talks with US officials, other European security advisers and Ukrainian representatives – as Europe and Ukraine scramble to reinsert themselves into a plan drawn up between Washington and Moscow.
The prime minister said on Saturday there was “more to do on the plan” in the coming days and the focus now was to try to make progress in Geneva.
Follow the latest: European leaders raise concerns over plan for Ukraine
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PM: ‘More to do’ on US Ukraine peace plan
After speaking on the phone to Donald Trump, Downing Street said the pair agreed their teams would work together on the US leader’s proposal in the Swiss city on Sunday.
Starmer also reiterated Britain’s “steadfast support for Ukraine” in a call with President Zelenskyy – as allies try to swing this deal more in Ukraine‘s favour, with the UK and other international leaders clear on their concerns to limit the size of the Ukrainian army and give up territory to Russia.
But in his remarks on camera, the prime minister was at pains to neither criticise the current deal nor President Trump.
One figure told me that the PM wants to act as a bridge between the Europeans and the US and has been playing a “game of whack-a-mole” over the past couple of days in an effort to keep others from publicly saying the deal is unacceptable for fear it would only serve to irritate President Trump and hurt Ukraine.
File pic: Reuters
Earlier, the prime minister said he would talk to his US counterpart in the coming days.
“I’m absolutely clear in my mind that President Trump wants a just and lasting peace, not just from the actions he’s taken towards that end, but also from the private discussions that I’ve had with him,” Mr Starmer said.
“So I know what he’s trying to achieve. We all want to achieve that.”
But there will be a question about what the alternative options are if allies cannot improve this deal by President Trump’s Thursday deadline.
The frontline in eastern Ukraine
The first option is to try to improve it and also slow down the process and buy more time, but if that fails, are allies looking at scenarios where they try to shore up Ukraine’s war efforts without the US support?
The prime minister responded by talking about point five in the 28-point plan, in which Ukraine is offered security guarantees from the US.
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Trump’s 28-point Ukraine peace plan in full
Analysis: We could all pay if Europe doesn’t step up
Starmer addresses G20 summit – but Trump boycotts talks
“That fortifies in me the belief that what we’re all trying to achieve here is a just and lasting peace will only be just as lasting if there are security guarantees,” Mr Starmer said.
“And if we bear in mind that matters for Ukraine are always to be determined by Ukraine.”
The next 24 hours will be critical as the Europeans, Ukraine and other allies try to improve this deal.
The prime minister has refused to rule out manifesto-breaking tax hikes in next week’s budget while speaking to Sky News political editor Beth Rigby.
Sir Keir Starmer was interviewed by Rigby while the pair were in South Africa for a meeting of the G20 group of nations.
Despite the government last year indicating it was not going to raise more taxes, it appears that Wednesday’s fiscal event will involve substantial increases in levies.
The 2024 Labour manifesto said: “We will ensure taxes on working people are kept as low as possible.
“Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase national insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of income tax, or VAT.”
At the start of their interview, the prime minister was asked by Rigby if it was important for politicians to “stick to their word”.
Sir Keir said: “Yes, it is important that politicians stick to their word.
“They have to make decisions against a political backdrop. And, we’ve also got big decisions to make in the budget that’s coming in just a few days time.”
This caveat matches the expectations that a range of taxes are going to be increased so the government can keep its spending pledges and increase its fiscal headroom amid worsening economic headwinds.
There was chaos last week after the increase in income tax that many had expected to be on the way was revealed to no longer be on the cards.
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Why has chancellor U-turned on income tax rises?
Asked specifically on the manifesto commitment on tax, Sir Keir told Rigby that decisions will be made “against a very difficult backdrop”.
In total, the prime minister refused 12 times to rule out tax rises.
He added it was “important to take the right decisions for our country”.
Rigby pointed out in the lead-up to the 2024 Budget, the prime minister was more unequivocal, saying income tax, national insurance and VAT would not all go up.
The prime minister declined to make the same promise, saying the decisions on tax will be announced on Wednesday.
Read more:
Did Reeves pull of something extraordinary?
Government borrowing higher than expected
Will energy bills be made cheaper?
However, Sir Keir said the budget will be guided by “principles”, including “fairness”.
The prime minister said the three areas he is “bearing down on” are the NHS, cutting national debt and dealing with the cost of living crisis.
One tax rise that has not been ruled out is what is known as a “stealth tax rise” of freezing income tax thresholds.
Rigby highlighted that in last year’s budget, Rachel Reeves said freezing thresholds will “hurt working people” – and asked the prime minister if he agreed.
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Sir Keir said: “We are going to set out our decisions.
“We will have absolutely in mind that the cost of living is the number one issue for people across the country.”
Pushed again, if working people will have their taxes increased, the prime minister instead mentioned he has people who are “struggling with the cost of living” in mind when making decisions.
Khurram Dara, a former policy lawyer at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, officially launched his campaign for New York State Attorney General.
In a Friday notice, Dara cited his “regulatory and policy experience, particularly in the crypto and fintech space” among his reasons to try to unseat Attorney General Letitia James in 2026.
The former Coinbase lawyer had been hinting since August at potential plans to run for office, claiming that James had engaged in “lawfare” against the crypto industry in New York.
Until July, Dara was the regulatory and policy principal at Bain Capital Crypto, the digital asset arm of the investment company. According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked as Coinbase’s policy counsel from June 2022 to January 2023 and was previously employed at the crypto companies Fluidity and Airswap.
James, who took office in 2019, has faced criticism from many in the crypto industry for filing lawsuits against companies on behalf of affected New Yorkers, including Genesis, KuCoin and NovaTech. Whoever assumes the role of New York’s attorney general would have significant discretion over whether to file charges against crypto companies.
Related: New York AG urges Congress to bolster protections in crypto bills
Dara, who said he plans to run as a Republican, also echoed Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s recent winning campaign, citing New Yorkers’ concerns about the cost of living and affordability. Cointelegraph reached out to Dara for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
The lawyer who represented XRP holders is also running for office again
As the deadline approached for candidates for various offices to announce their runs, former Massachusetts senatorial candidate John Deaton said he would try to unseat a Democrat again.
Deaton ran against Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2024, losing by about 700,000 votes. On Nov. 10, however, he announced he would run as a Republican again, attempting to unseat Senator Ed Markey in 2026.
Deaton gained recognition in the crypto industry by advocating on behalf of XRP holders in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ripple.
Like Dara, Deaton will be running in a race that largely favors Democrats: The last Republican to win a US Senate seat for Massachusetts was in 2010. Both candidates are expected to face competition in their respective Republican primaries.
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