Elliot Eastman, missing YouTuber who had sought to document Philippine’s volatile Zamboanga del Norte district is confirmed to have been killed in botched kidnapping, possibly because he was thought to be a wealthy expat along with upsetting locals for marrying a local Muslim woman.
A missing American vlogger was shot dead and his body dumped at sea in a botched kidnapping in the Philippines, according to local police.
Elliot Eastman, 26, a popular YouTuber reportedly died on the night of his abduction from his home in the poverty-stricken town of Sibuco in Zamboanga del Norte on October 17.
It is believed he was shot in the leg while resisting his alleged abductors, who pretended to be police officers, only to bleed to death while being taken out to sea in a speed boat, local GMA Regional TV reported.
Released images from the scene show blood splattered along the ground where the YouTuber was dragged away after being shot. Three suspects were later shot dead by police in a gunfight on November 12.
On Thursday, December 5, Lieutenant Colonel Ramoncelio Sawan, the Police Regional Office (PRO)-Zamboanga Peninsula acting spokesman, said: ‘Sometime late October, during our investigation, we encountered one witness who claimed Eastman had been shot during the abduction.
‘On their way to escape by sea, the abductors noticed that Elliot Eastman was already dead. They threw his body into the water.’
He said officials had treated the testimony as speculation, before it was verified this week by a suspect allegedly involved in the abduction.
He continued: ‘But then later on, sometime in November, we caught a suspect linked to the kidnapping. He himself confirmed what happened. He confirmed Elliot had been shot and that the man was dumped overboard.
‘This suspect was able to execute an extrajudicial confession and then we submitted it to the Prosecutor’s Office where we filed the complaint. The prosecutors accepted it.’
Eastman’s family has been informed through the US Embassy, the police spokesman added.
Authorities had hoped that Eastman was still alive and had been frantically searching for the missing expat according to the dailymail.
The operation resulted in clashes with armed kidnapping groups on the conflict-torn island of Mindanao.
Police said they are yet to find Eastman’s body and yet to verify the motive behind the abduction.
The American YouTuber was reportedly in the house with his Muslim Filipina wife Karisha Jala when four armed men allegedly burst through the door around 10pm on October 17.
The attackers falsely claimed they were police and reportedly shot the expat in the leg when he tried to resist.
He was then bundled away in a speedboat off the coast of Zamboanga del Norte – one of the most dangerous parts of the notoriously crime-ridden region in the Phillipines.
Former Sibuco Mayor Norbideiri Edding said kidnappers may have targeted the American because they thought he was a rich foreigner and resented that he was living with a local Muslim woman.
He also claimed Elliot had been facing financial difficulties after allegedly being scammed by his previous girlfriend whom he had planned to marry.
Just weeks before he was abducted, Eastman posted on a Facebook livestream that he was afraid of living in the area, where he had been for about five months, according to police.
‘As long as I’m here, my life is still at risk, you know,’ Eastman said on September 22.
‘That’s the reality. especially the area that I’m in….It’s not even just the Philippines.
‘This area that I’m in is like the most dangerous are in the country so it’s literally like the red zone.’
It remained unclear how Eastman came to be in the region and whether he had sought to leave the volatile region.
According to Eastman’s YouTube Channel, the vlogger had traveled to the Philippines 18 months ago.
‘I came to the Philippines about a year and half ago where I met the love of my life deep in the mountains of the red zone of the Philippines,’ the bio on Eastman’s Channel reads.
‘Zamboanga del Norte is a recently developed area of the Philippines that was once only accessible by boat. I will be showing you my day to day life as the first and only foreigner to have ever lived here in sibuco for a long period of time. I am from the USA!’
Eastman posted his last YouTube video on Oct. 15, two days before his alleged kidnapping. In the video, the social media user could been seen eating noodles and sitting in a deck chair, while other clips showed Eastman doing yoga and documenting the heavy rain in the country.
The aspiring vlogger had 4.5K subscribers on his channel.
The Philippines’ southern region has been grappling with constant separatist attacks for decades.
A Muslim enclave in the predominantly Catholic country, it is also a notorious hub for violent extremist groups such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf.
Efforts toward peace have seen progress, with a 2014 peace agreement and the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in 2019. However, sporadic clashes with extremist factions and ongoing poverty continue to challenge long-term stability.
