John McAfee blog taunts police as he continues to evade capture

The search for John McAfee by Belize police has taken a bizarre turn with the news that the antivirus founder has apparently started a blog in which he details his skill at evading capture.

A week ago McAfee, 67, went on the run in Belize after his neighbour, US citizen Gregory Viant Faull, was found dead from a bullet wound to the head.

McAfee’s involvement – or non-involvement – in the death remains a matter of conjecture but his decision to hide from the authorities and eccentric statements and behaviour have turned events in a cat and mouse affair increasingly fuelled by sensation.

The authenticity of The Hinterland blog can’t be confirmed, but in it an author claiming to be McAfee and with a detailed knowledge of the case claims to have disguised himself in order to return undetected to his Belize house last weekend, fooling even journalists.

So good was his cover that “on my second day, while peddling small wooden carvings, I nearly sold a dolphin carving to an Associated Press reporter standing at the edge of my dock. He was pulled away from my enticement by an urgent phone call,” the author reports in one oddly comic aside.

The author reports watching police search his residence as well as digging up the graves of four of his dogs, which McAfee previously claimed had been poisoned as part of a vendetta against him.

The author then goes on to reveal what he believes are inconsistencies in the police’s version of Faull’s murder, before making an appeal for the release of his employees arrested last week by police.

“If I am captured, this blog will continue. I have pre-written enough material to keep this blog alive for at least a year,” promises the most recent entry, dated 19 November.

Currently, the official position is that McAfee is wanted for questioning in connection with Faull’s murder with the Prime Minister of Belize Dean Barrow publically calling for his to hand himself in.

Judging by the events of the last week a stand-off that would be considered extraordinary in countries such as the US or the UK will continue for some days or weeks to come.

“Autonomous and self-serving, the press does what it does best – sensationalize. And my character and the recent events of my life have been sensationalized to the max,” said the blog in an earlier comment on news coverage.

Since arriving in Belize in 2008, McAfee seems to have become steadily less popular with the authorities. Earlier this year, he was arrested by police on alleged firearms and drugs offences.

McAfee’s direct connection with the security company bearing his name ended in the 1990s.