[Bloody Sam Roberts]

From the description of this video, it sounds as if Pearl has been dead from the get go. He never was "abducted".
Why would he be sitting interviewing someone if he was being held captive?
It's more than likely that he was lured with false info into the trap and led to the "interview" and bushwhacked.

[suekas]

There were initial pictures of him in captivity. I think that they told him to do an interview, so they could sneak up behind him, and sever his head on video, without him suspecting.