Police urged software company founder John McAfee Tuesday to come in for questioning and help solve the killing of his American neighbour on the Caribbean island where they lived.
But McAfee, the creator of the antivirus program of the same name, told the Associated Press in an email that he was not planning to turn himself in.
"Suspect or no, I believe the government wants me out of the way. Too many people have died in custody in this country so I intend to do nothing that puts me in their custody," said the message from an email account that McAfee identified as his during a conversation with an AP journalist in May. He gave no indication of his whereabouts.
McAfee, 67, has been identified as a "person of interest" in the killing of 52-year-old Gregory Viant Faull, whose body was found Sunday.
McAfee told Wired magazine Monday that he had nothing to do with the death, but feared police would kill him if they found him. He said he hid in the sand when he saw police coming to his house Sunday and put a cardboard box over his head to breathe.
Faull was found with a gunshot wound to his head inside his two-storey home north of San Pedro, a town on the island of Ambergris Caye, Martinez said.
The housekeeper discovered the body Sunday morning and called police.
McAfee told Wired that whoever shot Faull may have been gunning for him instead and mistakenly killed his neighbour.
San Pedro Mayor Daniel Guerrero said Faull had given the town council a letter complaining that McAfee's dogs were running loose, chasing cyclists and attacking people and that McAfee's security guards trespassed on other homeowners' property.
Wired quoted McAfee as saying that his dogs had been poisoned Friday night.
