Has Jay Slater been found? Full timeline of teen’s disappearance as body discovered in area 19-year-old went missing
BRITISH teenager Jay Slater has been missing in Tenerife since Monday, June 17.
A body has tragically been found in the hunt for the missing teen after a gruelling four week search.
Who is Jay Slater?
Jay Slater is a 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire.
He flew out to the Spanish island of Tenerife to attend the NRG music festival with friends, but has not been seen or heard from since June 17.
Local police fear Slater may have accidentally fallen to his death while walking in a remote area of Tenerife.
The timeline of events that has emerged paints a picture of his last known whereabouts, but Jay’s family and officials in Tenerife are still looking for answers.
Timeline of Jay Slater’s disappearance
Sunday June 16
Jay attended the NRG (New Rave Generation) music festival in the southwest of the island with his friends, including mate Lucy Mae Law.
At 8:35pm, he posted a video of himself laughing with his pals on Snapchat.
He befriended two other British festival-goers, who invited him to come back to their holiday rental.
Monday June 17
At some point in the night between Sunday and Monday morning, Jay left with the two Brits.
He partied at their Airbnb accommodation near the village of Masca in the Teno Rural Park, posting a Snapchat picture of himself holding a cigarette at 7:30am.
Jay reportedly told those at the property that he wanted to go home, and was informed that there was a bus every 10 minutes going to Los Cristianos, where he was staying.
The owner of the Airbnb later saw him heading uphill, stating: “He was alone. He was walking normally, though he was walking fast.”
Jay was likely unaware that the route would take about 10 hours to walk.
At 8:30am, he phoned his friend Lucy and told her he had missed the bus and was lost in the “middle of nowhere”.
He added that he had been walking for about half an hour, needed water, had cut his leg on a cactus and only had 1% of battery left on his phone.
The call then cut out — it’s last ping was still in the mountainous Teno Rural Park.
A missing persons report was filed at 9:00am and the search for Jay was launched with drones, sniffer dogs and a helicopter.
Lucy headed to the area where Jay was last seen and was driven around by a woman who offered to help with the frantic search.
Tuesday June 18
At around 2:00am, police knocked on the door of Jay’s mum, Debbie Duncan, and informed her of his disappearance.
She flew out to Tenerife at 7:00am along with Jay’s older brother, Zak.
Later that day, Debbie was bombarded with prank calls from people claiming to have kidnapped her son, while her partner said he believed Jay had just taken a wrong turn.
Wednesday June 19
A huge development was believed to have occurred when Spanish police received reports of a sighting of Jay in Los Cristianos.
The investigation moved to the south of Tenerife, but the sighting was found to be false and the search was forced to return north to the area around Masca.
Cops also searched Jay’s room in Los Cristianos but found nothing untoward; his passport, money and clothes were all as he had left them.
Jay’s mum gave a heart-wrenching interview, saying: “I just want my baby back.”
She said: “It’s just an absolute living nightmare. It’s like a dream — it’s like it’s not happening, it really is. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody.”
Lucy Law also spoke out and dubbed the situation “suspicious and weird”.
I just want my baby back
Debbie Duncan
Thursday June 20
New footage emerged from the NRG festival where Jay could be seen.
The film, taken by another rave attendee showed Jay walking through the crowd of clubbers with sunglasses on his head.
Friday June 21
The operation focused on the 2,000ft Masca ravine, which is 3km long and has a steep hiking trail that goes into the sea.
Lancashire Constabulary offered to assist in the search but the Guardia Civil declined, saying they already had sufficient resources.
This decision was criticised by Jay’s mum, who had spent eight hours in a police station that day.
The mystery acquaintances who he had stayed with flew back to the UK.
Saturday June 22
Reports came in of a possible sighting of Jay in Santiago del Teide, a village about 3.5 miles away from Masca.
A witness claimed to have seen Jay and two men sitting on a bench outside a church at about 6:00pm on the Monday — some 9 hours after the missing persons report had been filed.
The revelation of the unconfirmed sighting came as Jay’s dad, Warren Slater, visited the search area.
Friends of the missing man also spoke out to slam online trolls who had apparently hacked Jay’s Instagram account.
Sunday June 23
The investigation entered its seventh day as search teams honed in on outbuildings in the area and a journalist who had worked on the Madeline McCann case reached out to the Slater family to offer help.
A GoFundMe page set up by Lucy Law surpassed its goal of £30,000.
Monday June 24
Grainy CCTV footage surfaced from Santiago del Teide showing a figure walking past the village church around the time of the last reported sighting.
Jay’s family shared a still from the video, claiming that it has a likeness to him.
In an emotional plea, Debbie Duncan said: “I really hope I am not taking my son home in a body bag.”
Jay Slater’s dad Warren, 55, told The Sun: “I just want him to be found. I just want my son back, end of.
“What more is there, it’s been a week now, a week of nothing. So somebody somewhere must’ve found out something. Somebody.
“It is a living hell, unless you’re going through it, you cannot explain.
“Please, please please, if anybody knows anything just come forward and help us.”
Wednesday June 26
Descriptions of the two mystery men who partied with Jay the night before he vanished were revealed.
Investigator Mark Williams-Thomas claimed the men were “key witnesses”.
He spoke at a press conference in Tenerife where he claimed both of the men are black and in their 30s or early 40s.
They are said to be from Luton, Bedfordshire, with one going by the nickname “Johnny Vegas”.
Neither of them are believed to have been to the NRG music festival where Jay spent the day partying before he vanished.
One of the men was described as around 6ft tall, quite stocky, with short dark hair.
He was seen wearing an orange wristband and drank Hennessy cognac on the night where he was with Jay.
The men spoke with the Lancashire teen outside the Papagayo nightclub on the strip before driving him back to their accommodation, Mark claimed.
He added: “The family are desperate for these men to come forward as witnesses. They are not currently assisting.
“The group sat outside on the wall outside the club after the night ended. Witnesses say he seemed quite in control of himself.
“What we don’t know is why he went with them.”
The men were only in Tenerife for a couple of days before travelling back to Luton Airport
Sunday June 30
Spanish cops dramatically halted the search for Jay after two weeks, having found no trace of the teen.
And speaking exclusively to The Sun, a family source said Jay’s family were left “heartbroken and devastated” by the Civil Guard’s decision.
Close family friend Rachel Hargreaves, who joined them in Tenerife to help, said: “Nothing has changed. We will continue to search for him.”
And on the same date, one of Jay’s pals claimed he met two mystery British men days before he vanished.
Brad Hargreaves spoke with ITV‘s This Morning about the two mystery men who have since returned to the UK.
The pair are believed to have met Jay up to three days before June 17 when he went missing, Brad told reporter Isla Traquair.
In a TikTok video, Isla spoke about the two men, recalling what Brad had told her.
The TV crime reporter said: “The two men that he went to go and stay with, they had met them three days before. They hung out with them, they made friends on holiday.
“It wasn’t two random people he’d met that night. They’d established a friendship and Brad said they seemed like really cool guys.”
Tuesday July 2
Jay’s mum Debbie released a heartbreaking statement after the search for her son was called off after 14 days.
Her emotional message was issued through the British overseas missing persons charity LBT Global, she said: “Jay is a normal guy who is in his third year of an apprenticeship, and he is a very popular young man with a large circle of friends.
“We are a very close family and are absolutely devastated about his disappearance. Words cannot describe the pain and agony we are experiencing.
“He is our beautiful boy with his whole life ahead of him and we just want to find him.
“We do not have any information on his whereabouts.
“The Guardia Civil have worked tirelessly up in the mountains where Jay’s last phonecall was traced.
“They conducted a land search for 12 days which involved every resource they had available.
“Although the land search ended, the Spanish police still continue with their investigations into why Jay had travelled to the location so far away from his accommodation.
“We offer our sincere thanks to the Spanish authorities who continue to follow lines of inquiries.”
Thursday July 4
Jay’s heartbroken mum hit back against online trolls who touted wild conspiracy theories since her son’s disappearance.
She also rubbished theories that the whopping £50,000 raised on a GoFundMe for Jay is being used for anything untoward.
Debbie said: “For those of you who are more concerned around the Gofundme page I can assure you that up to now it has not been used and our stay up to now has been financed by ourselves.
“I did not ask for publicity from the start and was not aware that the first missing poster had my telephone number on it.
“It should have had the SOS Guardia Civil but like I say this was out of my control. We are a normal working family from Lancashire going through hell.”
Saturday July 6
Jay’s uncle, Glen Duncan, told The Sun in Tenerife that he was convinced others were involved in his nephew’s disappearance.
Glen told The Sun: “I’ve been thinking third party involvement from the start.
“There’s just some things that have already been out there.”
In a bombshell claim, Glen also said he was “baffled” by the police decision to rule out two men who Jay spent the night with at a £40-a-night Airbnb before he vanished.
Spanish cops spoke to both men and cleared them to return to the UK, dubbing them “irrelevant” to the investigation.
Tuesday July 9
The missing teen’s dad and brother scoured the mountainous village of Santiago del Teide, continuing their search after the oficial search had been axed.
It came as Jay’s worried dad, Warren Slater, begged British police to get involved in search efforts for his missing son.
He warned it would take “an army 10 years” to search the vast mountainous area where Jay vanished.
Speaking to The Sun Warren said: “As a family, we need to ask the British authorities to help. He’s a British citizen. Get Interpol involved.
“At the moment, it’s just us. I haven’t got a team. We need a team to come over here and find out for us what the police are doing and what we need to do.
“Our hands are tied over here – we need experts.
“It’ll take an army 10 years to cover all this. I’d employ a team of Gurkhas.”
Saturday July 13
The mystery of the teen’s disappearance deepened after Jay’s last known location on June 17 was thought to be marked by a ping from his cellphone on Tenerife.
The new theory stated that the 19-year-old threw his phone into the bushes in order to avoid detection after allegedly stealing a £12,000 Rolex.
He could have then made his way down the nearby Los Gigantes cliffs via a safe route to a nearby jetty.
There, Jay may have boarded a waiting boat and skipped the island – meaning the teen might be alive and well somewhere else.
Mysteriously, a 14ft yacht named the Maruba was also reportedly recorded sailing past Masca beach around the time of Slater’s disappearance.
A short time afterwards, the yacht’s signal stopped registering on electronic maps.
Monday July 15
Spanish cops announced that a body has been found in the area Jay was last known to be in — Masca.
A spokesman for the Civil Guard said today: “After 29 constant days of searching the lifeless body of the young man has been found in the Masca area.
“The discovery has been possible thanks to the tireless and discreet search carried out by the Civil Guard over these 29 days.
“Everything is pointing to the body being that of the young British man who disappeared on June 17, pending full identification.
“Initial inquiries are pointing to him having suffered an accident/fall in the area where he was found.”