Anti-virus software founder John McAfee returned to the United States on Wednesday after he was released from detention in Guatemala.

Guatemalan immigration officials escorted McAfee, 67, to the Guatemala City airport, where he boarded a flight to Miami.

"I'm free, I'm going to America," he said.

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John McAfee hospitalized in Guatemala due to heart attacks, lawyer says

McAfee is wanted for questioning in Belize over the murder of a neighbor. He had been held for a week by immigration officials in Guatemala, where he surfaced after evading Belizean officials for nearly a month.

McAfee -- famous for the anti-virus software that still bears his name -- crossed into Guatemala with his 20-year-old girlfriend to evade authorities in Belize, who want to quiz him as "a person of interest" about the killing of fellow American Gregory Faull.

One of Silicon Valley's first entrepreneurs to build an Internet fortune, McAfee made millions of dollars through antivirus software.

McAfee's behavior has been increasingly erratic in recent years but there is no international arrest warrant for him. Police in Belize say he is not a prime suspect.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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LOS ANGELES - A California man who spent 18 years on the run from charges that he molested a four-year-old girl has been arrested in Guatemala and returned to the United States for prosecution, authorities said Tuesday. 

Jeffrey Reed Parish, 65, was taken into custody by Guatemalan police without incident on Thursday at his home in Panajachel, about 90 miles from Guatemala City, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. 

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Eimiller said the fugitive, who was living under the assumed name "Blake," did not resist and "appeared to know why he was being arrested." 

 

He was deported back to the United States on Saturday, accompanied by an FBI agent and a Santa Barbara County Sheriff's sergeant, she said. 

Parish had been scheduled for trial in Santa Barbara Municipal Court in March 1994 when he vanished. Officials believe that Parish may have molested other victims before his initial arrest, according to NBC station KSBY.

U.S. detectives looked at Parish's file in 2011 as part of a routine effort to solve cold cases, according to the LA Times. They sent out an "age-enhanced" picture based on a mug shot taken in 1994, the newspaper reported. 

Investigators were assisted by the FBI's legal attache in San Salvador and the Transnational Anti-Gang unit of the Guatemalan National Police. 

More news from KSBY.com

FBI Special Agent Ingerd Sotelo, who with a Santa Barbara County Sheriff's detective was credited with finding Parish, said the wanted man told her he had initially fled to Mexico but spent most of the past 18 years in Panajachel. 

'He was just Blake'
Sotelo told Reuters that Parish traveled there after hearing that the small, picturesque town on the shores of Lake Atitlan was home to a large contingent of Westerners and had eked out a living by doing gardening work. 

"Nobody there knew whether it was first name or last," Det. Ted Toedte of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department told the LA Times. "He was just Blake."

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Others may be charged on suspicion of helping Parish to remain at large, Toedte added.

Parish, who was accused of molesting a four-year-old girl in the beachside community of Carpenteria, near Santa Barbara, was expected to be prosecuted on the original charges of lewd acts on a child and oral copulation. 

It was not immediately clear if Parish had retained a lawyer in California. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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