Is John McAfee still alive?

The life of John McAfee, the cyber security pioneer who hung himself in a Spanish prison last year, has taken another mysterious turn.

An ex-girlfriend of his, Samantha Herrera, claimed that he faked his death in the Spanish prison and is discretely living in Texas.

Herrera, who was with McAfee while living in Belize in 2012, shared these claims in a new documentary about his final years.

Running With the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee, which was released on Netflix this week, chronicles the controversial antivirus mogul as he fled Belize after being considered someone of interest in the death of his neighbour Gregory Faull.

The documentary also follows McAfee on the run again in 2019 from US authorities, crossing the Caribbean and Europe, where he was arrested at a Spanish airport.

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Less than eight months later, he died after killing himself in his jail cell.

"After his death, I got a call from Texas. 'It's me, John, I paid off people to pretend that I am dead, but I am not dead," Herrera said in the documentary claiming that McAfee asked her to run away with me.

At that time, he was facing charges of tax evasion and fraud as well as fighting extradition to the US.

“After his death, I got a call from Texas. ‘It’s me, John, I paid off people to pretend that I am dead, but I am not dead." Getty

Speaking with The Independent in the final interview before his death, he explained that he never wanted to come back to the US and believed there was "zero chance" that Spain would extradite him.

On Wednesday, Janice McAfee, McAfee's widow, said Texas is an unlikely hideout area.

"Texas is awesome, for sure, but John was being held in a Spanish prison because of trumped-up charges against him from the IRS, so I doubt he would choose to hide out in America," she tweeted.

Janice also disputed the verdict of suicide, as noted by The Independent, and claimed that the note found on his body was the draft of a tweet.

"They were so quick to rush the story of a suicide, but yet they won't give us the autopsy report, they won't release his body...," she said in May.

Elsewhere, Janice launched a Change.org petition calling for the release of his body, which is in a Spanish morgue.

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