i remember the night. it was very dark. we pulled into his home. it did have the feel of almost being in a bond movie. he had a lot going on. >> a millionaire computer genius, living in paradise and on the edge. >> i tried to cut his throat. he just said, "do it." >> he takes the gun out and he puts it to his head. >> the jungle started to infect him, almost like a virus. >> then came the mystery. his neighbor suddenly found dead. >> there was blood all over the floor, everyone was crying. >> i said, "no, this can't possibly happen." >> and the millionaire was suddenly on the run, taunting authorities, launching a chase. an international hide-and-seek

hunt. >> everything just seemed like fiction, it didn't seem real. >> he may have eluded the police, but he didn't elude us. >> so neither you nor anyone representing you went over to greg faull's house and shot him through the head? >> no, sir. can you possibly get any inkling of the truth? you will not believe the things that happened. >> i'm lester holt. >> get ready for some serious "heart of darkness" [ bleep ] here. >> and this is "dateline." tonight, keith morrison with "the fugitive millionaire." >> reporter: an american murdered in a tropical paradise, while a famous and wealthy man is on the run. >> i'm trying to delay my imminent capture. >> reporter: why was he hiding? >> he is bonkers, in my view, without a doubt.

>> reporter: the story is a strange brew of dogs, guns and girls. teenage girls. >> i was ready to shoot him, and for some reason i missed. >> reporter: an interconnected web with one man at its center. >> john is smart. he knows what he's doioing. >> reporter: tonight's case will take us from the high-tech world of silicon valley to the jungles central america. and finally to a small town in alabama. >> get ready for some serious "heart of darkness" [ bleep ] here. >> reporter: "heart of darkness"? oh yes. and a wildly strange tale about a high-flying business tycoon named john mcafee and the bizarre chain of events that would make him the focus of an international manhunt.

there's little doubt you know the name, mcafee, even if you don't recognize his face. that's because you've probably had anti-virus software on your computer at one time or another. >> in the past three weeks we've seen five new viruses. >> reporter: back in the '80s it was the visionary john mcafee who recognized the threat posed by invisible computer viruses and made a fortune by devising defenses to stop them. david faber is a business reporter for cnbc. >> he made a $100 million when it was really something to make $100 million. >> reporter: but faber knew that mcafee lost most of that money in the real estate bust. >> this is called snake alley for obvious reasons anyway, that i hope we don't find out about. >> reporter: it was 2009. faber was making a documentary about boom and bust. he found mcafee at his new adopted home in belize. and the buff and charismatic then-64-year-old made a

fascinating case study. >> well, my life has turned around 180 degrees down here. i mentioned the freedom here. there are virtually no regulations on business. >> a lot of it was "belize is a paradise for people like me, because i can do anything i want. there are no laws. intellectual property, nobody cares. i can start anything." >> reporter: and he did, whenever he perceived an opportunity to make buck. water taxis, ultralights. but his pride and joy, mcafee told faber, was the creation of a special lab in which he planned to make new medicines from jungle plants. >> hopefully we will be in production of some fairly unique pharmaceuticals. >> reporter: with a beach home on an island off the coast called ambergris caye, and a jungle compound on the mainland near the town of carmelita, john mcafee could still afford to live large.

and make an impression. >> i remember the night i arrived in belize. he had invited me over to his home. it's on the water, and it was very dark. and then we pulled into his home, which was lit up. and i walked in and he was playing the piano. and it did have the feel of almost being in a bond movie, and this is your villain in some ways. he didn't turn to me and say, "hello, mr. faber." but it almost had that feel to it. it was unlike anything i've sort of -- i've ever kind of experienced. >> reporter: david faber, here to meet a man who took business risks, had caught a glimpse of another mcafee. >> i think he likes drama.

he likes intense experiences. >> reporter: joshua davis met that other mcafee in 2012. davis, a contributing editor at "wired" magazine, and onetime got to know mcafee after he learned that belizean police had raided the millionaire's mainland compound looking for illegal drugs. >> i heard about this raid on april 30th when the belizean police force burst into his compound in the jungle. and that struck me as extraordinary. >> reporter: as it turned out, the police did not find any illegal drugs at mcafee's compound in that raid, though the millionaire was charged with having an unlicensed gun. the fact that police even suspected mcafee of making drugs was intriguing. mcafee had been an outspoken teetotaler ever since kicking a drug habit back in the '80s, so davis went to belize to investigate. it was there, said davis, that

mcafee told him that the belizean government was seriously corrupt and the government's paramilitary gang suppression unit, or gsu, was out to get him. >> one of his initial explanations for why the april 30th raid happened was that one of the local politicians had come to him and asked for a donation. he had refused. as a result, they sicked the gsu on him. >> reporter: to which the belizean government replied, nonsense. >> they raided him because they didn't know what was going on. he was heavily armed. he had more bodyguards than the prime minister. he had, essentially, a private army, and he's got a laboratory making god knows what, because he won't tell anybody. >> reporter: davis went to carmelita, the tiny town nearest to mcafee's jungle compound, where townspeople told him, he said, that mcafee had gone native. >> as he got more involved in this small little village of carmelita, the way he talked started to devolve.

his dress devolved. i think that the jungle and that environment started to infect him almost like a virus. >> what he said to his friends was, "my fragile connection with polite society has been severed." >> reporter: after that raid mcafee moved back to his house on ambergris caye, where davis reported he surrounded himself with guard dogs, armed men and several teenaged girls. in a country where the age of consent is 16, mcafee told davis he liked to keep those girls busy in bed. >> he told me that for him five hours is a quickie, and then he brought one of his girls out to confirm the point. she said, "yep, that's true." >> reporter: mcafee was 67, living a schoolboy's dream, albeit, a rather heavily armed schoolboy. davis was soon convinced that the man who once billed himself as the world's greatest computer security expert was now a security risk to himself and others.

>> we were in his bungalow and he had a smith & wesson .38 special strapped to his chest in a holster. he takes the gun out. he opens the chamber. there's six bullets in. he drops them out. he takes one of the bullets and he chambers it, closes it, spins the cylinder and he puts it to his head. and i'm like, "john, we don't have to do this." and he goes, "i know we don't." and he says, "your perception of reality may not be correct." and he starts pulling the trigger. click, click, click, click, click, five times. and there's only six chambers. and then he pulls it a sixth time and nothing happens. he says, "you have missed something about reality." and i say, "oh, it's a trick." and he goes, "no, it's not a trick." and he opens the door and he aims the gun at the sand. and he pulls the trigger and the bullet goes off. it was a live round. >> reporter: paranoid eccentrics, make good stories, but rarely make good neighbors. the armed guards and snarling

dogs were an aggravation to tourists and others who had to walk past mcafee's house. and by november 2012, one of john mcafee's neighbors may have decided he'd had enough. darkness was about to fall on this sunny stretch of paradise. when we come back -- >> there was blood all over the floor. >> an international man hunt was about to fascinate the world.

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>> reporter: it was american expats who live along this stretch of beach who told us the murder case that began in november 2012 and made headlines around the world. it began as a mundane neighborhood dispute about dogs. snarling, snapping curs who frequently roamed the beach in front of john mcafee's beach home on ambergris caye. the barking kept the neighbors up nights, and the biting? well, that was bad for business. >> the dogs did bite a few people. i mean, we had one group of tourists leave early because of the dog situation.

>> reporter: shane and brittany mccann are property managers on ambergris caye. and like a lot of the other american expats on the island, they knew john mcafee casually. >> there were guards at his house. we didn't know all that was going on. >> reporter: jeff speigel and his wife vivian yu say customers walking to their restaurant just down the beach from mcafee's house had to first get past mcafee's dogs and guards. >> and if you're a tourist walking up and down the beach at night and somebody shines a maglight flashlight in your face, while shouldering a shotgun, it can be disconcerting. >> reporter: such a harsh vibe for such a peaceful place. not at all what greg faull expected when he moved to ambergris caye back in may of 2012. >> we got to know greg because after working for 12 hours a day, he would come up to our bar and hang out, talk, and close it down.

>> reporter: and greg faull, said jeff, was right out of central casting. he'd made his money in the construction business in florida, and here in belize, he was living out a fantasy. >> greg had three birds, and the first time he walked up the bar with moe, you know, beach bar, a guy with a tommy bahama t-shirt, board shorts, and a parrot on his shoulder. and i turned him and said, "you realize, greg, that you've become that guy." >> reporter: the happy-go-lucky guy, but oh those dogs. greg faull had himself been bitten. a profound dislike for john mcafee followed. >> a couple times, and you know john was out there and greg was yelling at him, "keep your dogs inside the fence," and just, you know, like, "we have tourists here. i mean, they're biting people." >> reporter: it all came to a head on the night of november 9th, 2012, a friday.

that's when four of john mcafee's dogs were poisoned. many on the island immediately suspected that greg did it. >> he told everybody that he was going to poison those dogs, you know. everybody knew that he was going to poison the dogs. >> reporter: and 36 hours later, early on a sunday morning, shane mccann woke up to a ringing phone. it was greg faull's caretaker. greg, he said, was dead. >> we thought heart attack. >> i was thinking heart attack. i'm thinking he, you know, could have slipped and fell on the tile. >> reporter: but no, when the mccanns and the other expats got to greg's house, it was clear this was no slip and fall. >> his body was there motionless. >> there was blood all over the floor. >> there was blood everywhere, yeah. >> reporter: police soon determined that greg faull had been killed with a single shot

to the back of the head, execution style. and there was one oddly horrifying detail -- the position of greg faull's t-shirt. >> it was pulled up over, like in a hockey move or something, where you pull the center up over you head like that. it was all the way behind his neck, but his shirt was still on. it was just the center pulled up over. >> reporter: as he stood there looking at his friend's corpse, he was struck by the fact that, in spite of the obvious violence, there seemed to be no sign a robbery or even any struggle anywhere in the house. >> i just found it very odd that someone could subdue somebody like greg, a guy that can free-dive 50 feet for a conch at 52 years old, ex-military. how could you just subdue somebody like that? >> reporter: shane figured greg, given half a chance, would have put up a fight. that was also the first thing art faull, greg's father, thought when he got the news in jacksonville, florida. >> i yelled, i said, "no, it can't possibly happen, not

greg." you know? because nobody could, i don't think, anyone could have overpowered greg with -- if he'd of had a chance, you know? i suspect that he just never had a chance. >> reporter: given the bad blood between greg faull and john mcafee, then, the belizian police thought it would be a good idea to walk down the beach and have a word with the reclusive millionaire. trouble was they couldn't find him. he had up and disappeared. in short order, the police declared mcafee the primary suspect, and the news flashed around the world. >> the tech millionaire is now a fugitive. >> reporter: a celebrity manhunt in the tropics? that was like catnip. so i packed my bags and booked a flight to belize. coming up, a one-time member of mcafee's harem led us into his layer where the stories only

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>> reporter: when we arrived on

the strip of island that was john mcafee's paradise in november 2012, the american expats we met seemed to be waiting for something to happen. everyone knew the police were scouring the place, searching for the man they believed knew something about the murder of greg faull. but john mcafee truly seemed to have vanished, though it didn't mean reporters weren't hearing from him. >> right now, sir, i am holed up in a place where the mattress here has lice. i've never experienced that before. >> reporter: joshua davis, who was writing an article about mcafee at the time, was among the first to get a call. >> i can't sleep at night because every noise, you know, i'm alerted to every noise. >> reporter: mcafee told davis that he had a young woman with him. >> sam is quite the soldier. samantha, she has been loyally with me for the last couple of months. >> reporter: he insisted he knew nothing whatever about his neighbor's murder. >> i have to ask you this point

blank -- did you kill him? >> no sir, no sir. that's not even funny. >> okay. >> reporter: not only did he deny committing the murder, he proposed an astonishng idea that the bullet that killed faull had really been meant for him. >> the first thing i thought about was, "oh my god. he's a white man, i'm a white man. someone, the government has finally decided to off me, and they got the wrong white man." >> so, he says, "the last thing i'm going to do is turn myself into the police, because they'll kill me." >> reporter: kill him? yes, he truly believed that the belizian police wanted to get rid of him. rub him out. do him in. >> i'm trying to delay my imminent capture. >> reporter: armed with a laptop, a cell phone, and a flair for the dramatic, mcafee tantalized the press and taunted the police with clues that he was still on ambergris caye.

this is a regular occurrence. apparently, there are police in there. armed police, with a rifle, and they're looking through the basis, or have been ever since the beginning of this. i don't think there's any expectation really that he's going to be here, but they're looking. can you speak about this? though the police admitted they had no other suspects, john mcafee's classification was downgraded to the less ominous sounding "person of interest." >> we still think he's here in belize. and we believe that he will come in. >> reporter: this is police spokesman raphael martinez. >> we believe that he will come in. >> reporter: and if you find him you'll arrest him? >> we will detain him, and we will ask him some questions. >> reporter: but undermanned and underfunded, the belizean police force seemed ill-equipped to actually hunt down a man of means like mcafee, a man who clearly did not want to be found. what's your message for john mcafee? >> i would want to appeal to him and tell him, "please come in. let's bring a closure to this

case and let's all carry on with our lives." >> reporter: but john mcafee seemed to be toying with the police. leaving clues in his blog, hinting he might be hiding right under their noses, cleverly disguised as a tourist or street vendor. >> i've been in public many times. i went shopping in public the other day. i went to buy some strawberries. >> reporter: our search was quite unlike that of the police. we made arrangements with middlemen for a secret rendezvous, but mcafee never showed. of course john might not be on the island at all. the only person who seemed always to know how to reach him was this woman, one of mcafee's former teenaged lovers, amy herbert. a lot of guests here besides girls? i mean just -- >> just his girls. >> reporter: not much other company. >> mm-hmm. >> reporter: amy had john mcafee's trust, it seemed. >> you want to go from the front? >> reporter: front door? doesn't matter. so it was, with his permission,

she said, that amy showed us around his beach estate. >> here's the house. >> reporter: nice. >> we would always snorkel almost every weekend, and he would get his tan. >> reporter: but, said amy, after that police raid everything changed. >> that's when he started being paranoid and he just kept inside. >> reporter: given mcafee's bizarre behavior, some people wondered if he was using drugs again. do you guys ever do drugs in here? or anywhere? >> no, he never accepted any types of drugs on his property. >> reporter: later, amy told us that she had often seen mcafee doing some kind of chemical experiments. >> i'm like, "what are you doing?" he said, "i'm just working on some chemicals and stuff." he said, "it's for research." he said never to touch these, taste it, eat it, anything. he said it's poison. >> reporter: do you have any idea what it was? >> i did not have any idea about it. >> reporter: he wouldn't tell you? >> he would not tell me anything about it. >> reporter: it was around then, said amy, that her strange relationship with john mcafee

had its strangest moment. >> i was angry, whatever, and i hoot him, and for some reason i missed, or aimed bad. >> reporter: you tried to shoot him? >> uh-huh, yes. i also tried to cut his throat, but he just leaned against a wall and said, "do it." i couldn't do it. >> reporter: and you stayed together after that? >> oh yeah, he loved me more, i guess. but he slept with one eye open. >> reporter: though the romance eventually ended, amy remained close enough to mcafee to get him on the phone for us. how are you doing? >> i'm doing all right, sir, under the circumstances. >> reporter: mcafee wouldn't say where he was hiding, but he did hint he was close by. >> i did notice your boats, your guys in one of my boats giving me your business. i'm very glad for that business. >> reporter: yeah, we were in one of your boats, you're absolutely right. was he watching us? were the police watching us, too, hoping we might lead them to him?

listen, can you tell us anything that will clear up some questions about what happened over that course of that weekend when your neighbor was killed? >> you know, i have no idea what happened to my neighbor, none. >> reporter: we'd traveled a long way for the phone call and were still no closer to laying eyes on him than were the belizean police. and then, days after the call, mcafee's blog reported he had been captured in mexico. but no, that turned out to be false. then on december 4th, 2012, nearly a month after greg faull was murdered, mcafee announced on his blog that he and his young female companion had crossed the border to guatemala. why here? well, a couple of very practical reasons, some of them about family, and some international politics. and because of that, the story

got even stranger. after weeks on the run, there he was in the flesh. according to mcafee, he was not running from a homicide investigation. no, he said he was in guatamala to ask for political asylum and protection from the government of belize. >> seven months ago, the belizean government sent 42 armed soldiers into my property. i had to leave, but the story has to get out. >> reporter: according to mcafee's 20-year-old companion, samantha vanegas, the couple came to guatemala in part because she had a relative here who could be helpful. >> so i tell him i have an uncle who's a lawyer and he's a pretty good lawyer. you could ask anyone here in guatemala. >> reporter: you certainly could. sam's uncle has represented some of the biggest names in central america, like former panamanian strongman manuel noriega. but convincing a judge that john mcafee was a political

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>> reporter: for weeks after the murder of greg faull, we, and much of the rest of the world's press,tried to find the elusive john mcafee. a spectacle which, for greg faull's father, art, and stepmom, roseann, was pretty hard to take. >> i had phone calls from cbs, nbc, abc, fox, cnn, "the new york times," and "the wall street journal" in two days. >> it was questions about this other fellow, you know? and it's like, "excuse me, you're asking me the wrong question. ask me about our loss." >> reporter: and that seemed almost to be secondary. like it was lost in the shuffle. >> yeah, yeah, that's right. it was lost in the shuffle. greg was pushed off to one side,

because it was the mcafee circus. >> reporter: no doubt, mcafee was good copy, but with the police not talking and john mcafee not talking to police, rumor and speculation was all there was. that is until the world's most wanted "person of interest" surfaced in guatemala seeking sanctuary. according to mcafee's traveling companion, samantha vanegas, the couple had used their wits to elude capture. for weeks, she said, mcafee made the police think he was on ambergris caye when in fact he, and she, were hiding out on the mainland, she said, in belize city. >> he was in the city. i mean, john is smart, he knows what he's doing. and when he turned his phone on and said, "you know what? they're going to track us down. leave the phone there." we took out all the battery of the phone and leave one on the island and people really thought he was there. >> reporter: because his cell phone was there on the island? >> went on and on because they

were tracking it. and what made them think he was there? because on his blog he would 20 feet to 40 feet from my yard, and i could see that the police are raiding it." >> reporter: and that was a lie? >> that was a lie. when your life is in danger you have to lie, and he did. >> reporter: but it certainly wasn't easy, said samantha. very uncomfortable in those early days on the lam. >> we'd go in bushes everywhere. we crossed river by boat. john's back was, at one point looked horrible, it had a lot of bites on it. i even told him, "dude, you look really sick. you don't even look like john." he was skinny because he didn't eat, he didn't drink water. >> reporter: true? impossible to know. but that was her story. eventually, said samantha, they found a place to hole up. mcafee dyed his hair, and whenever he needed to venture out into the open, she says he donned a disguise. >> he pretend that he was a crippled guy, humpback, painted his hair white, his beard, put on hat, glasses, whatever it would take for his safety he

would do. >> reporter: and nobody recognized him? >> no one ever recognized him. >> reporter: and according to vanegas, it was her uncle, the lawyer, who arranged to have her and mcafee smuggled out of belize, first by taxicab from belize city to punta gorda and then by boat to guatemala. >> it has been an adventure for me, yet disturbing because i don't like to leave my house. it makes me sick. >> reporter: don't feel well? >> i don't. >> reporter: john mcafee wasn't exactly feeling on top of the world either, it seemed. first, a guatemalan judge summarily dismissed his petition for political asylum. and then, the guatemalan police took him into custody, not as a murder suspect, but on the grounds he had entered the country illegally. and then? the next day at the local immigration detention center, as a gaggle of media waited to find out if guatemalan authorities would send mcafee back to belize, this story took a heart-stopping turn. within sight of the assembled

cameras john mcafee suddenly swooned and appeared to lose consciousness. within minutes, he was rushed to the hospital, but when doctors could find nothing wrong with him he was returned to the detention center. and it was there that john mcafee finally agreed to sit for his only extended tv interview since the murder, with us. and what an interview it was. >> a crazy man on the run is far more sensational than a political problem. >> reporter: right, and you are an insane man on the run. >> coming up. expect the unexpected. could he really be heine this? >> so you nor anybody representing you went to his,000f house?

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>> reporter: for nearly a month,

john mcafee, one of silicon valley's original princes of high tech, had been hiding from belizean police. they wanted to talk to him about the murder of his neighbor, greg faull. now detained in guatamala with nowhere to hide, john mcafee decided to talk to us, though it must be said he didn't seem to relish the prospect. >> here's the problem. you have a deadline, right? and your deadline is always now because the news has become immediacy. immediacy. your job is to get the news out before your competition. well, that makes your deadline infinitesimally small. can you possibly get any inkling of the truth in that infinitesimally small space? >> reporter: no, but you can when you research things as we do. >> all we do, all the folks do is research everybody else. "new york times" said this, cnn said this. >> reporter: but this is really a question. the whole point is that this is a story about a murder. >> for you it's a story about a murder.

for me it is not. >> reporter: it was interesting, for a man who once used the media to such personal advantage, john mcafee seemed to resent the press now that he was in custody in guatemala. >> what sells in the news? sensationalism. a crazy man on the run is far more sensational than a political problem. >> reporter: right. and you are an insane man on the run. >> if you say so. i mean -- >> reporter: no, i mean, but that's the image. i mean, you have a blog. you know what the comments on your blog are. they all think you're nuts. >> they all think i'm -- >> reporter: half of them. >> think i'm nuts and half of them think they love me. okay, and both of them are nuts because once they think they love me, they've never met me. >> reporter: well, the assumption is you enjoy it. that's the perception. >> why was i not in the press for ten years? i would not talk to a reporter. i don't trust you guys. >> reporter: can't imagine why. >> because whatever i say to you people, because i live a lifestyle which might be a little over the line or outside -- i want to say over the line of normal behavior,

instead of looking at the latest thing i'm trying to develop, i were -- that's great. that's great about the antivirus. but tell me, tell me about your lifestyle. >> reporter: on the subject of greg faull, john mcafee conceded there was bad blood between the two men. >> i did not particularly care for the man. he drank a lot. i'm sorry. i don't hang with people who drink. i don't even want to talk to people who drink while they're drinking. >> reporter: in the weeks and months leading up to the murder, how often did you see him? >> maybe one time. maybe twice. and only passing the beach. he did come by one time and said, "i'm just angry about your dogs. i can't sleep." i go, "i'm really sorry. i can't sleep either. i'm angry about my dogs. i sympathized." >> reporter: and did you say you were going to do something about the dogs? >> yes, i did something. i built another fence so that they wouldn't -- they were jumping out that was annoying all the neighbors. >> reporter: was he also complaining about your security guards and the guns that they were carrying? >> they were. everybody complained about that, too. he was not an exception. >> reporter: you would allow security guards to wander around in the front of your house in front of the public beach with guns, menacing, at least in the perception of the tourists

walking by these people, and not prevent them from doing so. >> okay, here's what's -- may i stand up for a moment? >> reporter: do whatever you wish. >> mr. cameraman, are you clever enough to do this? i think you are. okay, so now, if someone is carrying a gun, a shotgun holding like this, how can that be menacing? how can that be menacing, sir? someone sees a gun, well, the world's full of guns. america has 280 million out there. >> reporter: however, your neighbors were saying that these men weren't just holding the guns down here. >> that's not true. >> reporter: they were pointing them at people. they were threatening people. >> do you think i would tolerate that? get real. >> reporter: as he had from the beginning, mcafee insisted he had no motive for killing faull. he never believed faull was responsible for poisoning his dogs, he said. >> i know who killed the dogs. >> reporter: who? >> the government. >> reporter: the witness who has no reason to lie claims that greg faull told him he was going to kill the dogs. >> but he told everybody. >> reporter: the night before -- >> but he told everybody he was going to kill the dogs. he drank a lot, sir. i just blew it off. i know for a fact he's not the kind of person who would kill a

dog. >> reporter: how did you know that? >> because he was a dog lover. >> reporter: i'm told that he didn't love dogs at all. >> that's fine. all i can tell you is i believed he loved dogs. >> reporter: there's lots of evidence to suggest greg faull killed your dogs. >> well, no, i say there's a lot of evidence where greg faull could have killed my dogs. anybody could have killed my dogs. i know who poisoned my dogs. my paranoia tells me. >> reporter: the government. >> see, okay, agreed. >> reporter: so neither you nor anybody representing you went over to greg faull's house on that occasion and pulled his t-shirt up over his head and shot him through the head. >> no, sir. the government poisoned my dogs. >> reporter: and the government killed greg faull? >> how would i know who killed greg faull? i don't believe the government killed him. that was the first thought through my mind, however. >> reporter: though, at the time we spoke, mcafee seemed to face a probability of deportation back to belize, he seemed remarkably unconcerned.

in fact, told us that after five years in what he once called an entrepreneurial paradise, he was looking forward to going home. back to the good old usa. how do you see this whole saga ending? >> happy for everybody. happy for everybody. what i will do is i will stop bashing belize in my blog. my neighbors can have some peace and quiet. the guatemalan government gets to go, "whew, thank god he didn't want to stay here." everybody's happy. america's happy, more tax dollars, it's the perfect solution. that will be the solution. >> reporter: you're convinced of it? >> i haven't been wrong about much in my life and people who know me will say one thing, "don't ever bet with this man." i don't like to lose money. i don't. and i'll bet you on this one. >> reporter: spoken like a gambler who might have known the fix was in. the real question was whether john mcafee would ever be forced to sit face-to-face with

homicide detectives. >> it almost feels hopeless. >> the murder of graig fall. will a brokenhearted family get answers. and mr. mcafee in danger again? >> we hid for four and a half hours wheel they searched everywhere for us. the okware set. pick up a little kohls cash too. plus enroll today for kohls yes 2 you rewards. get a $5 reward for every 100 points! this super saturday! find your yes. kohls. introducing new flonase allergy relief nasal spray. this changes everything. new flonase outperforms the #1 allergy pill so you will inhale life. when we breathe in allergens our bodies react by over-producing six key inflammatory

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>> reporter: a week of the john mcafee media circus was apparently all guatemala could take. runaway millionaire was abruptly deported.

not to belize, where he was considered a "person of interest" in a murder case, but back to the united states, where he was considered a celebrity. >> john, thanks so much for joining us. you are in miami, aren't you? >> i was just playing around with you. yes, i am in miami. >> reporter: at every stop on his media rounds, mcafee said he would gladly answer questions about the murder of greg faull, but not in belize. >> what will you do if you were charged with this murder and the u.s. forces you to go back to belize? will you disappear? will you go to answer those charges? >> i will certainly answer any questions, and i've offered to answer them in a neutral country. if i am, well, i'm certainly going to answer them, but it will not happen, sir. >> reporter: back on belize's ambergris caye, american expats, like vivian yu and jeff spiegel, were left to wonder if the investigation into greg faull's murder is even active. >> nobody has said anything. they're not looking for anybody else as far as we know. why? we only know as much as you know and as much as everybody else

knows. >> and saying a one sentence answer of "i had nothing to do with the murder of gregory faull" doesn't really cut it. >> reporter: could detectives have made some sense of it all had they been able to question mcafee? that time seems to have passed. >> hello, there. my name is john mcafee. >> reporter: as for john mcafee? since arriving back in the states, he's become something of a cult figure, appearing in elaborate online videos that poke fun at his notoriety. [ gun shot ] >> reporter: after brief stints living in portland, oregon, and colorado springs, montreal, mcafee told us he has found a permanent home in lexington, tennessee. and when he's not there or traveling around the country giving speeches, he's here in opelika, alabama, where he has started a new company called future tense central to develop internet security and privacy products. >> i basically mentor young people these days, give them

guidance and counsel in how they should start their businesses, focus a business, and run the business. and that's really where my heart lies. our future is with the young. >> reporter: as for all those young women mcafee mentored down in belize, they were left behind. these days, said mcafee, he is a happily married man. he still believes the belizean government is out to get him. he tells a story about an attempt on his life was made in portland in 2013. >> in the morning, two police motorcycles, followed by a black sedan, followed by a garbage truck, parked in front of our condominium. my wife and i ran downstairs. we hid under a car for 4 1/2 hours while they searched everywhere for us. the security cameras, by the way, were removed on that day. so it was a frightening experience for us. >> reporter: but in spite of

that, said mcafee, he's tired of running. >> it is exhausting to live in fear. it is exhausting to be looking over your shoulder constantly. and at some point, you say, "this is no way to live." >> reporter: and if you're wondering what happened to all those guns that he seemed so fond of brandishing for the cameras, mcafee told us that was all just for show. >> in order to sell newspapers, they need drama. and you know, a madman with guns, well, that's drama. so sure, here they are. i'll hold them. how do you want me to hold them? you bet. i'll do that. i don't even have them with me today. if you want to see a gun, my security guard has one. so no, i mean that's not me. that's what the press wants to make of me. >> reporter: can you believe him? as you might imagine, now, more than two years after the murder, greg faull's family members do not. but then, they don't know what to believe. >> it doesn't make any sense at all.

if mcafee claims his innocence, why did he disappear and make a circus for this whole thing? i don't understand it. and i just wish someone would investigate it or find someone who can talk about it and bring some justice somewhere. >> reporter: in a statement, the belizean commissioner of police told "dateline" that john mcafee remains a person of interest. they still want to interview him, and the murder of greg faull is still an open case. >> it almost feels hopeless, because, you know, it's a foreign country and i don't know how to handle it. >> reporter: have you had any answers or any contact from them? >> no, not anything from them at all. >> reporter: but it's desperately important to know. >> oh yes, it's desperately important to know. this whole family is just terribly broken up. we all are.

>> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. things change, lloyd. i need you to be more careful. are you telling me how to do my job? i'm warning you. one or two more of these experiments goes south and someone's gonna get wind of what we're doing here. and you're being well compensated to take on that risk, lloyd but if you're telling me that you'd rather not continue we will find somebody else. is that what you'd prefer? [ police radio chatter ] [ sighs ] license and registration please.