Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee’ follows the story of McAfee, whose intense wildlife created a storm for everyone he touched. Despite the immense success with the antivirus software that he created, his volatile character resulted in a life story that is nothing short of a Hollywood adventure movie. Samantha Herrera became a part of his journey, even if briefly, and landed herself in the middle of the chaos that left everyone dumbfounded in its wake.
No one knew what to make of John McAfee, and though Herrera saw a future with him, it turned out that she wasn’t any wiser when it came to the indiscernible millionaire. The Netflix documentary shows us McAfee and Herrera’s story and the circumstances in which they had to part ways. But what happened after that? Let’s find out.
Samantha Herrera is Focusing on Building Herself a Good Life
Samantha Herrera lives in Orange Walk, Belize, where she works as a bartender. Her Facebook profile shows that she is not in a committed relationship right now, but she does have a beautiful family with two children. When her misadventures with McAfee came to an end, Herrera decided to keep her distance from the limelight. She didn’t talk much about it in the media but did reveal some things in Showtime’s ‘Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee’ and Netflix’s ‘Running With the Devil.’ In the latter, she also revealed that while McAfee had died in 2021, she received a call later from a man claiming to be McAfee. He said that he was in Texas, in hiding, and had faked his death to get out of the prison in Spain. He also asked Herrera to run away with him.
While McAfee’s fake death might seem like an outlandish thing to others, Herrera has first-hand experience of being a part of McAfee’s outrageous schemes. Previously, while in Guatemala, he had a heart attack, which interestingly allowed him to find his way back to the US, creating some suspicion around the situation. At that time, Herrera was not allowed to join him in America, something that McAfee lamented at the time, but then later accused Herrera of setting him up. By this time, however, Herrera had already seen her fair share of ups and downs with McAfee.
She was only eighteen when she first met the tech millionaire who was living a wild life in Belize. In 2012, when McAfee’s neighbor, Gregory Faull died under suspicious circumstances, McAfee became paranoid about the Belizean government coming after him because he claimed he had the means to expose their corruption. He decided to run and Herrera joined him. They had planned to get married, and it looked like they could be home free in America when they crossed over to Guatemala. However, it turned out that this was the end of the road for the couple. Since then, Herrera has done her best to keep herself removed from McAfee, who, it looks like, had a lot more unraveling to do.
While the Netflix documentary ends with Herrera’s statement that she received a suspicious call, allegedly from McAfee, it doesn’t confirm what she really thinks about it, whether or not she believes that it was really McAfee who called her. Director Charlie Russell believes that she does not. “I don’t know what I think and I don’t think she does. She says it, then she looks at the camera, and I can’t work out whether she thinks it’s real or not,” he told Esquire. “She’s someone who was very angry at John. I think he offered her a real different future, then he literally ditched her at the border, and I think that’s very painful for her, and it’s taken her years to get over that.” Considering the tumultuous past they had, even if Herrera believes that McAfee faked his death, the possibility of her joining him on the run, leaving behind the life she has built for herself, is rather slim.
Read More: Greg Faull Murder: How Did He Die? Who Killed Him?
