Janice Dyson spoke to her husband John McAfee twice on the morning of 23 June 2021. His last words to her were that he would call that evening. Hours later, prison staff at Brians 2 penitentiary in Barcelona found him hanging from the window of his cell with a shoelace around his neck. He was still breathing when they found him. Dyson did not know this for another four months, when she was shown CCTV footage that prison authorities had not mentioned in the call telling her he was dead.
Five years on, she is still in Spain.
Table of Contents
In Brief
- Also known as: Janice McAfee
- Born: 1983
- Nationality: American
- Known for: Widow of John McAfee, software and antivirus pioneer
- Married: 2013 to 2021 (McAfee died at Brians 2 penitentiary, Barcelona)
- Janice Dyson net worth: None; McAfee died without a will or estate
- Current location: Spain (undisclosed city)
Who Is Janice Dyson?
Janice Dyson, also known as Janice McAfee, is the widow of John McAfee, the British-American software entrepreneur who founded McAfee Associates in 1987 and created the world’s first commercial antivirus software. She was his third wife, married from 2013 until his death in Barcelona on 23 June 2021. Born in 1983, she is now in her early 40s and of African-American descent.
She gave her most recent public interview to Zoom Magazine in January 2026, speaking from an undisclosed location in Spain.
Before she met McAfee, Dyson was working as a sex worker in South Beach, Miami Beach, Florida. Almost nothing from her life before that night has been publicly reported. She has said in interviews that McAfee helped her reconnect with a son she had before they met.
How She Met John McAfee
On the night of 14 December 2012, McAfee had just returned to the United States after being deported from Guatemala, where he had fled following the November 2012 murder of his neighbour, Gregory Faull. Belize authorities had named him a person of interest in the killing, and he had arrived in Miami with, by his own account, the clothes on his back.
That night, Dyson approached him outside a café in South Beach. A 2017 Newsweek investigation by journalist Anthony Cuthbertson reported that McAfee initially turned her down before the two spent the night together and began a relationship. McAfee was 67 at the time, Dyson was approximately 29, and the age gap between them was about 37 years.
In a 2015 interview with Black Enterprise, Janice gave her own account of the meeting. She said she had recognised in McAfee “the same feelings of loneliness and emptiness” she felt in herself, and was struck by the calm with which he described losing everything he had.
They married in 2013.
Their Marriage: a Kidnap Plot and an Arrest at Sea
The couple moved from Portland, Oregon to Lexington, Tennessee after the wedding. Within four years, Janice was at the centre of a criminal plot to kidnap her own husband.
The 2017 Kidnap Plot
In November 2017, Newsweek published an investigation by Anthony Cuthbertson revealing that Janice had been blackmailed by her former pimp, Delmariea Kamani Crutchfield, into cooperating with a plan to drug McAfee and leave the doors of their Lexington home unlocked for people intending to rob and kidnap him. Crutchfield had known about a reported $2 million bounty connected to McAfee’s time in Belize.
She told Newsweek she had tried to protect her husband throughout, blocking attempts without revealing she was being coerced. He told Cuthbertson that Janice had “probably done more good than harm,” and that while she was cooperating with his would-be kidnappers, she also “kind of likes me, I guess.”
Detained in the Dominican Republic, 2019
The pair stayed together and, by the summer of 2019, were living aboard a yacht in the Caribbean. In July of that year, Reuters reported that Dominican Navy officers boarded McAfee’s yacht, the Great Mystery, at Puerto Plata on the country’s northern coast, and found high-calibre weapons, ammunition and military-style gear on board. Janice McAfee was detained alongside her husband and four others. The Dominican Republic’s Public Ministry seized the weapons. When they were freed four days later, Janice posted on Twitter: “Glad to be out of detention. We’re safe and on our way to the airport. Thank GOD!”
McAfee’s Arrest in Spain and His Death
On 5 October 2020, McAfee was arrested at Barcelona’s El Prat airport on a warrant from Tennessee prosecutors. They alleged he had failed to file income tax returns for four years while earning millions from cryptocurrency endorsements and consulting work, and he faced up to 30 years in prison. The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed separate civil charges the same day.
He spent the next eight months at Brians 2 penitentiary while Janice campaigned publicly for his release. On 15 October 2020, she posted from the Twitter account she managed on his behalf:
“I am content in here. I have friends. The food is good. All is well. Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine.”
On 23 June 2021, the Spanish National Court approved his extradition to the United States. That afternoon, prison staff found him in his cell. The official cause of death was suicide by hanging. Spanish prison authorities confirmed to journalists that McAfee had previously attempted to take his own life approximately four months before his death.
NBC News and the Associated Press covered Janice’s first public statement two days later, outside Brians 2:
“His last words to me were ‘I love you and I will call you in the evening.’ Those words are not words of somebody who is suicidal. I blame the US authorities for this tragedy. Because of these politically motivated charges against him, my husband is now dead.”
Four months after his death, she was shown CCTV footage revealing that McAfee had still been breathing when prison staff found him. His pulse had been faint and his breathing shallow. She said CPR had been performed while the noose was still around his neck, and that prison authorities had not mentioned any of this when they called to say he was dead.
The 2022 Netflix Documentary and the Battle for His Body
In August 2022, Netflix released Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee, directed by Charlie Russell, covering McAfee’s years on the run. Janice was interviewed for the film and, in one exchange on camera, said she had attached herself to McAfee because she saw “an opportunity.” The documentary also featured Samantha Herrera, an earlier companion of McAfee’s, who claimed on camera that he had phoned her after his death to say he was still alive. Janice McAfee has not backed that account.
The legal battle over McAfee’s remains had been running since the day he died.
| Timeline | What Happened |
|---|---|
| June 2021 | Spanish courts refused to release the body; family request for independent autopsy checks denied by a local judge |
| First 6 months post-death | Body stored refrigerated only, not preserved, making independent forensic examination impossible |
| June 2022 | Reuters confirmed the body was still in a Spanish morgue, one full year on |
| September 2023 | Catalan court ruled suicide and officially closed the case |
| 15 December 2023 | Body released to Janice; cremated the same day |
When the body was finally handed over in December 2023, Janice learned that Spanish authorities had stored it refrigerated rather than properly preserved for the first six months after his death. This, she was told, had made any independent forensic examination impossible before it had even been formally requested. A prison investigation running from June 2021 through to early 2022 had also prevented outside examination during that period.
She told journalist Darren Parkin of The Digital Commonwealth in January 2024:
“I was able to finally have his body released to me and cremated on December 15, but during the process I found out some additional information that has only raised more questions.”
She described what she felt as “anger, bordering on rage” rather than relief. “John was very intelligent,” she added. “He was a man with a plan, and a man with an ace up his sleeve. Always.”
Where Is Janice Dyson Now?
As of early 2026, Janice McAfee is in an undisclosed location in Spain, where she has lived since her husband’s death. John McAfee left no will and no estate, and she has been working odd jobs to cover her living costs since his arrest in October 2020. A Zoom Magazine interview from January 2026 found her kept from losing her accommodation by one friend.
In January 2025, she used McAfee’s X account to announce a meme coin and a chatbot called Antivirus, saying the project was to honour his memory. The meme coin reached a market capitalisation of approximately $37 million. The account was later suspended after widespread criticism, with many calling it a potential scam.
In August 2025, she gave a lengthy interview to the Matthew Cox Inside True Crime channel on YouTube, covered by The Root. In the interview, she revisited the CCTV footage and CPR detail, and said McAfee’s legal problems had started in Belize, where government officials raided his property after he refused to make a political donation.
When Zoom Magazine spoke to her in January 2026, she said: “People forget very quickly and I understand why because the world moves so fast these days. I just hope he is remembered correctly. That is the least he deserves.”
What She Is Still Waiting For
The Catalan court ruled McAfee’s death a suicide in September 2023, and Janice McAfee is not disputing that verdict.
In the same January 2024 interview with The Digital Commonwealth, she told Parkin that “nothing in the paperwork they have given me explains” what happened between when her husband was found alive in that cell and when he was pronounced dead. The official autopsy report, the one document that would contain that account, is what she has been asking for since 2021.
As of January 2026, Spain had not sent it.
