THE_REAL_SHAT

McAfee, Still in Hiding, Predicts ‘They Will Track Me Down’

Antivirus pioneer John McAfee is still on the run, hiding in the bottoms of boats and cars, sleeping on a mattress infested with lice, and finally taking refuge in homes at undisclosed locations in Belize. “Obviously, given enough time, they will track me down,” he said in an exclusive interview this morning. “It’s just a matter of time.”

McAfee phoned me again at 6:13 a.m. Belize time and described his last 48 hours on the lam. With his permission I recorded our interview, which you can hear above.

McAfee, 67, is wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Gregory Faull, a 52-year-old American expatriate and neighbor of McAfee’s. Faull was found dead in his villa Sunday morning, shot once in the back of the head. Faull had complained about the barking of McAfee’s dogs — he kept 11 at his beachside compound — and four of those dogs were poisoned Friday night.

When police arrived at McAfee’s property to question him and search the premises Sunday afternoon, McAfee hid, burying himself in sand and covering his head with a cardboard box. He says he spent 18 hours hiding on his property before slipping away.

His reason, he explained to Wired this morning: He believes he’ll be tortured or killed by Belizean authorities if captured. “You know what happens in Central American jails in order to get information. I fully expect to have signed statements saying God knows what,” he said. “If you put enough pain on someone, they will say or sign anything.”

And so, he says, he’ll remain in hiding as long as possible. “I’m unable to move. All the police, all the media have my photo. It’s a small country,” he said. “If I leave this house, I would be identified immediately and nabbed.”

Some of the methods McAfee is using to evade detection are staying in unexpected locations, changing his name to a random string of characters, attaching himself to unsuspecting law-abiding citizens, and disguising himself as Anna Kournikova.