Police in the Philippines said they have arrested three people in connection with their investigation into the reported kidnapping earlier this month of a Vermont man who had been living in that country for the past several months.
Authorities in the Philippines have been searching for 26-year-old Elliot Eastman since Oct. 17, when he was reportedly shot in the leg, abducted and taken onto a boat by his assailants in Sibuco, in the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte.
A law enforcement task force established to investigate Eastman’s disappearance reported in a press release posted Wednesday on a regional police agency’s Facebook page that, as of Tuesday, they had three suspects in custody who had “direct participation in the kidnapping.”
The police added in the statement, “The meticulous intelligence, investigation, and tactical operations” also led to the identification of three other suspects involved in the crime.
Complaints have been filed in court against “six principal suspects and other John Does as accessories of the crime,” police said.
“We believe he is alive so our operations are ongoing,” Lt. Col. Helen Galvez, a regional police spokesperson, told the Associated Press in a report Wednesday. “Our search won’t stop until we locate him.”
Police in the Philippines had reported that on Oct. 17 a group of men falsely posing as law enforcement officers abducted Eastman from a residence where he had been living.
As Eastman resisted, police added, he was shot in the leg and then taken aboard a boat that fled the area.
Eastman, according to a report earlier this month in the New York Times, had been living in the Philippines since May and had first arrived in the country a year earlier, when he met his wife, Karisha Jala Eastman.
The couple married in July 2023 and Eastman came back to the United States for work before returning to the Philippines, according to the Times report.
A Facebook page that appears to belong to Eastman shows recent photos and videos of his life in the Philippines and identifies his hometown as Hinesburg. He appears to have graduated from Champlain Valley Union High School, which serves Hinesburg and neighboring towns, in 2016.
Family members of Eastman could not immediately be reached Wednesday for comment.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Three people taken into custody in reported kidnapping of Vermonter in the Philippines.