Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Youtuber is Missing - The Elliot Eastman Story

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Youtuber Elliot Eastman moves to the Philippines and is kidnapped by locals.

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Now his name's Eastman, and Eastman's 26, he's American, but he's not really doing much here. Like he's an Uber driver sometimes. Bro really wants to get out. He wants an adventure. So one day he says, fuck it. And he leaves. And he flies from the U.S. 8,000 miles away to the Philippines.

And there he travels over to the mountains in Zemwai. Anga del Norte. Here's the thing about that area though. It's really nice looking, but some parts of it aren't exactly safe. Some even refer to it as the Red Zone. Even the State Department warns American tourists to exercise increased caution when considering traveling there. But whatever, Eastman wanted a little adventure and he seems to like it there.

So there, he meets a local woman and she speaks decent English and so they start talking and they hit it off and Eastman thinks she is foin! And eventually she becomes his girlfriend, so we'll just call her girlfriend. And so girlfriend takes him to her village, to meet her family, and everything seems to be going well, and they end up getting engaged. And eventually they even get married. And this is actual footage of their Muslim wedding, I guess he converted to Islam for her. Now Eastman has a YouTube channel, and there he starts documenting living in this new place

that few foreigners will ever go to. What up you guys? I was just cooking, so that's why I got some chuckle. on my face, I burnt my hand a little bit. Now on this channel, he mostly just does live streams and just talks to his audience. And he also has a TikTok account. And you can see one of his TikToks here,

is just him and his wife, and they're just like goofing around. Now, Eastman isn't necessarily rich by American standards, but in the Philippines, in that specific area, US dollars go really far. So in pesos, he has a small fortune. I am renting this apartment here for $3,000. 3,000 pesos each month. And so he's renting this little apartment for like $52 a month.

And eventually he decides to open a little grocery store right on the beach. And so Eastman, he starts building the store himself with his own two hands and he stocks it and he gets his Wi-Fi set up. And soon enough, his business is up and running. We have this huge store, massive store. I think we spent 43,000 pesos on all of it. But despite how much he likes it there, according to him, the area he's in actually isn't very safe for foreigners. I've never seen any other foreigner here.

It's dangerous. It's a dangerous area. And sometimes when he and his wife are out and around, he has to hide from strangers. Up and down the mountains and now I got to hide. Because maybe it's a kidnapper. It's being scared here of dangerous people. I always have to hide. It looks like the guy had a gun. Some sort.

Regardless, he keeps living his life and doing his live streams. Now, if this were me, as an American, living in this apparently dangerous place, I would stop live streaming. Like, I would stop drawing any attention to myself. The fewer people that know I exist, the better. Oh, but not Eastman, he seems to love to stream. I mean, he just keeps going. He keeps streaming multiple times every day. Not only that, on more than one occasion, he gets on live and he talks about money.

Like he's live and he mentions loaning out pesos to some locals. We lent him 21,400 and he came back with 23,500. Yeah, that's not something I would do. But whatever, so far, he seems to be getting the adventure that he was craving in his life so badly. Until. One day, things start to go bad for him. And it starts when his little store gets robbed. We got robbed last night.

What? Yeah, our store. I think maybe somebody climbed through here because we left their money here from our store. So I think either somebody came through here. They came to the door. I don't really know. And yeah, that really sucks for him. And I don't know if it's his store getting robbed or if it's the constant hiding.

But at some point, Eastman starts to get bummed out. And it's like the tone of his live streams takes a turn. I feel like I've been staying in this area for so long to the point where people, I don't even know if people like me anymore. Maybe they want bad things to happen to me now. I mean, I don't know. Maybe he finally realizes that he put himself in a vulnerable position. Like, what would happen?

And somebody did try to come here and kidnap me, right? Would the neighbors help me or would they just sit there and watch? But every day, he seems to feel worse. Everybody's telling me right now, there's people out there planning, planning to come get me, bro. People coming here to tell my family that there's people that want to kidnap me or they're threatening to kidnap me or stuff like that, like every day. And he even starts suggesting to his wife that maybe moving here wasn't such a good idea. I don't even think I'd want to come back here.

Yes, it's you. And so, yeah. from his videos, it seems like he's ready to get the hell out of there. As long as I'm here, my life is still at risk, you know? Still at risk, that's a reality. My life is at risk a little bit here, for sure. Especially the area that I'm in, it's not even just the Philippines. It's like this area that I'm in, it's like the most dangerous area,

one of the most dangerous areas in the Philippines, you know? It's literally like the red zone. But then one night, everything changes. Eastman, he's chilling at home, and he's live streaming like he always does, and one of his viewers asks if he's enjoying the Philippines. There's some parts that I like about it. There's some parts that I don't. Then, about two hours later, after that stream ends,

Eastman, he's still there with his wife, and I believe some of his wife's family, and suddenly, shit gets real. And kaboom, four police officers bust through the door, and they got pew-pues, big ones, and they grab Eastman and they force him outside. Here's the thing, though, these police officers, they're not police officers at all.

They're actually kidnapping. dressed as police officers. And it seems like Eastman knows this, like he knows something's not right, and he's not going out without a fight. And so they struggle, and he fights back, and then boom, he breaks out, he tries to run away. But the kidnappers, they're not going to let him go.

And blam, one of them shoots him in the thigh, and then, blam, he gets shot in the stomach, and then they grab him over to the shore where their speedboat is parked. And his poor wife, she's watching all this go down, and she's like screaming her head off. Then the kidnappers throw him in the boat, him in the boat and then they all get in and they speed away as Eastman lays there injured and bleeding out.

And so immediately word gets out about this and the local police come and they launch a manhunt looking for the kidnappers and they're going from house to house. They send a speedboat out to pursue the captors but unfortunately it's too late. The kidnappers are long gone and there's no sign of Eastman anywhere. Meanwhile on the boat allegedly Eastman tries to hold on but But eventually he succumbs to his wounds and he ends up unalived. And so the men, they pick up his body and they throw it to the ocean. American vlogger Elliot Eastman, who was kidnapped in Zamonga del Norte, is now feared dead. Now, the good thing is that local police do eventually find and arrest three of the alleged kidnappers.

But so far, they haven't caught everyone who was involved. And as of now, they still haven't recovered Eastman's body. So why did these armed men dress like police officers suddenly bust into Eastman's house and kidnap him only to accidentally unalive him in the process? Well, as of right now, we unfortunately don't know. I mean, we know the three suspects are part of a criminal group, and one of the leading theories right now is that they targeted him because he's American and they see him as a foreigner with money. The kidnappers may have thought that he was a rich foreigner.

Maybe he was coming from a wealthy family that could have provided a high ransom. for his return either way that's a sad one so stay safe out there