A preliminary autopsy has confirmed that John McAfee died from suicide by hanging in his prison cell near Barcelona.

McAfee died only hours after the Spanish National Court ordered his extradition to the United States for his criminal charges filed in Tennessee for tax fraud. The U.S. software mogul previously spent years running from the U.S. authorities until he was captured at a Barcelona airport and detained last October.

The Spanish newspaper reported that unnamed sources close to the case revealed that McAfee had a suicide note in his pocket and had locked himself in his room two hours before his body was found.

His family has requested a second thorough autopsy, as his widowed wife Janice McAfee did not buy that her husband would commit suicide and had spoken to him hours before his death on the phone.

“His last words to me were ‘I love you and I will call you in the evening,’ those words are not words of someone who is suicidal,” Janice McAfee told reporters. She also blamed the U.S. for his death, “I blame the U.S. authorities for this tragedy. Because of these politically motivated charges against him, my husband is now dead,”

McAfee’s lawyer Javier Villalba said none of McAfee’s behavior implied that he was suicidal, but admitted McAfee had been driven to despair by the news that he would be extradited to the U.S.

“I had constant telephone contacts with him,” Villalba revealed. “At no point had he shown any special worry or clue that could let us think this could have happened.”

A 2020 McAfee tweet resurfaced after his death where McAfee referenced the 2019 suicide by hanging of Jeffrey Epstein in his prison cell.

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1316801215083225096

McAfee became vocal on Twitter in his final months after his arrest in a  Catalan prison sharing his feelings and thoughts often in the tone of philosophy, humor and hardship.

McAfee, 75, had previously expressed fear over spending the rest of his life in prison if he were to be extradited, though he would only be facing a five-year maximum sentence.

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Article by Samantha Popovics

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