A missing YouTuber is dead. Authorities have confirmed that kidnappers shot and killed Elliot Eastman after kidnapping him in the Philippines. The YouTuber reportedly died on the same night that they abducted him from his home in Sibuco in Zamboanga del Norte.
The incident happened on October 17. One of the kidnappers shot Eastman in the leg while he tried to fight back against those abducting him. The gunmen loaded him onto a boat, but he died from his injury while out on the boat. Authorities believe that his kidnappers then dumped him at sea.
Fast forward several weeks, and authorities killed three of the suspected kidnappers in a firefight on November 12. Lieutenant Colonel Ramoncelio Sawan, the Police Regional Office (PRO)-Zamboanga Peninsula acting spokesman, said via Daily Mail, "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."
YouTuber Dies
Authorities later were able to confirm the account by the witness.
Sawan 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."
Authorities have informed his family of his death. Up until this point, they had been desperately searching for him. At this point, they're still not sure what the motive behind the kidnapping was. The kidnappers burst into his home on October 17 after claiming they were police. They then shot the YouTuber in the leg after he fought back.
The area is known for being high in crime and dangerous. Authorities theorize that Eastman may have been targeted because he was an American that married a local Muslim woman. Eastman had previously conveyed that his life was at risk in the area.
'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."
