Never mind the dog, beware of owner: Sign on McAfee's house

BELIZE: To the many people who crossed his path on a tropical island in Belize, it was apparent John McAfee's life had taken some bizarre turns in the last few years. The anti-virus software guru, who started McAfee Associates in 1989, has been in hiding since police said they wanted to question him about the weekend murder of his neighbor, fellow American Gregory Faull, with whom McAfee had quarreled.

Despite his disappearance, McAfee, 67, has remained in contact with the media, providing a stream of colorful bulletins over his predicament, state of mind and his claim that Belize's authorities want to kill him. Residents of the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye and others who know him paint the picture of an eccentric, impulsive man who gave up a career as a successful entrepreneur in the United States for a life of semi-seclusion in the former pirate haven of Belize, surrounded by bodyguards and young women.

McAfee, a yoga fan who has lived on the island for about four years, often moves around with bodyguards and sticks pistols in his belt. "Never mind the dog, beware of owner," counsels a small sign, embellished with a sketched hand gripping a large pistol, tacked to the fence separating McAfee's beachfront swimming pool from the pier that cuts into the azure sea.

Officials suspect he used designer drugs, and neighbors say McAfee tried to chase them off the public beach in front of his house. Inside his home, a blue-roofed cottage complex, he kept a small arsenal of shotguns and scope-fitted rifles. There were also complaints about the millionaire's numerous and noisy dogs. Officials say the poisoning of four of the dogs may be linked to the murder of Faull, a 52-year-old Florida building contractor who was shot dead at his salmon-hued two-story villa about 100 yards (meters) down the beach from McAfee. Faull was one of the locals who had complained about McAfee's attitude and his dogs.

Many locals in San Pedro describe the tattooed McAfee, who made a fortune developing the Internet anti-virus software that bears his name, as a generous but unstable man. "He's a good guy, he helped a lot of people. The problem was when he wanted something he wanted it right now. And when he didn't get it, he'd get paranoid," said one islander, a former McAfee employee, who like many people here spoke on condition their name not be used for fear of retribution. "He's a complex man, very impulsive," the islander added.

 

He tipped generously everywhere he went, and hired a steady stream of taxis for frequent female guests on the $150 round trip from the small airstrip in San Pedro out to his house. "Not two or three, a lot of women," said Artemio Awayo, 24, a local waiter. "Every time I saw him it was a different woman."

Those who knew him said he didn't drink and never hung out at the island's many bars. But employees at a restaurant near the pier where McAfee's water taxi company is based said his actions grew more bizarre following a police raid last April on his mainland hacienda outside the town of Orange Walk. Even for casual lunches, McAfee began regularly coming to town with at least two bodyguards, clad in camouflage and each packing pistols, they said.