SANT ESTEVE SESROVIRES, Spain — The widow of John McAfee, the British-American tycoon who died in a Spanish prison this week while awaiting extradition to the United States, said Friday that her husband was not suicidal when she last spoke to him hours before he was found dead.
“His last words to me were ‘I love you and I will call you in the evening,’” Janice McAfee told reporters outside the Brians 2 penitentiary northwest of Barcelona where she recovered her late husband’s belongings.
“Those words are not words of somebody who is suicidal,” she added in her first public remarks since the software entrepreneur’s death on Wednesday.
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Authorities in Spain are conducting an autopsy on McAfee’s body but have indicated that everything at the scene indicated that the 75-year-old killed himself.
John McAfee was arrested at the Barcelona airport in October last year on a warrant issued by prosecutors in Tennessee for allegedly evading more than $4 million in taxes. Hours before he was found dead, Spain’s National Court agreed to his extradition to the U.S. but the decision was not final.
“We were prepared for that decision and had a plan of action already in place to appeal that decision,” Janice McAfee, 38, told reporters. “I blame the U.S. authorities for this tragedy: Because of these politically motivated charges against him my husband is now dead.”
Results of McAfee’s autopsy could take “days or weeks,” authorities have said.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
