Inside week-long search for Jay Slater: How hunt unfolded for British teenager, 19, who vanished in Tenerife after telling friend he was 'lost in the mountains with no water and one per cent battery' - Progres News (2024)

British holidaymaker Jay Slater seemingly vanished without trace exactly seven days ago in Tenerife.

Despite an extensive search by rescue teams and police on the Spanish holiday island, there have been no further clues of possible sightings.

Here, MailOnline pieces together everything known about the apprentice bricklayer’s mysterious disappearance.

Jay, 19, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, flew from Manchester with his friend Brad Hargreaves on June 12 eagerly looking forward to the three-day NRG dance festival that was being held in the notorious Veronica’s Strip area of Playa de las Americas.

They checked into their £70-a-night ground floor apartment at the Paloma Beach complex in nearby Los Cristianos and met up with friends Lucy Law and Brandon Hodgkin, both 19.

It was Jay’s first holiday abroad and his mother school finance officer Debbie Duncan, 55, had warned him to ‘be careful and have your wits about you’.

Initially it seems for the first few days that was the case as they enjoyed what festival organisers NRG described in their flyers as a ‘weekend of stunning visuals and innovative productions.’

It kicked off with an opening party at Xanadu, followed by a pool party at The Beach at Hard Rock Hotel and an after party at Xandau which Jay energetically took part in.

On the third and final day, he and his friends attended an outdoor rave followed by an after party at the Papagayo Beach Club at the end of Veronica’s Strip.

The half-mile stretch of beach front is home to numerous bars and clubs and also attracts drug dealers by the dozen with pushers offering anything every few feet.

Debris including hippy crack cannisters, balloons and small plastic wrap bags litter the pavement which street cleaners do their best to sweep away every morning when the clubs shut at 5am.

It is known that Jay was last seen at Papagayo by Lucy at around 1am when she said she was going to return to her apartment with Brad.

Jay instead said he would be staying with two mystery British men he had met that night and despite Lucy repeatedly asking him to go home back to his apartment with them.

It is now known that just before Papagayo closed there was a brawl outside with police involved to break it up – although there is no suggestion that Jay was involved.

An employee at Papagayo told MailOnline: ‘The last night was crazy, there were so many people and it was madness, the kids were all either drunk or high.

‘Just before we shut there was a big fight outside and the police were called but that’s nothing new it happens all the time here – it’s usually between rival drug gangs.’

Footage from Papagayo obtained by MailOnline shows Jay dancing with Lucy and then at one point later he was topless, smiling and with his manbag strapped over his shoulder.

It is known that Jay left the club with the two men, and they drove 19 miles along a tortuous winding mountain road to the village of Masca in the Parque Rural de Tenco.

The men – described by a bar owner next door as in their late 30s to early 40s – had hired a £40-a-night Airbnb called Casa Abuela Tina for three days.

Just why two men would hire an apartment a good hour from the lively hotspot of Playa de las Americas is not clear, but they have been questioned by Spanish police and are now back in the UK.

It is known that at 7.30am on Monday June 17, the day he vanished, Jay sent two Snapchat images from the house – one showing the view from the front door – and another him holding a cigarette on the doorstep.

Ofelia Medina Hernandez – whose brother Roman Antonio Martin Canaves, a former mayor of the nearby town of El Tanque owns the Airbnb – said she had seen Jay standing by the bus stop directly outside and he had asked about buses back to Los Cristianos.

Ms Medina Hernandez explained that the next bus down the mountain in the Parque Rural de Teno was not until two hours later at 10am.

She said: ‘I held up my fingers on my hands to say 10am as he didn’t understand me. I then went home briefly before driving up the mountain to Buenavista del Norte. This time I saw him walking on the road out of the village.

‘It was no more than ten or fifteen minutes after I had spoken to him, and he was about a kilometre from the house. I drove past him and that’s the last I saw him.’

Lucy Law told MailOnline that the last message she had from Jay was at 8.50am. She said Jay phoned her and told her he was ‘lost, needed water and had one per cent battery’ on his mobile – and that he was going to try and walk 11 hours back.

But using the images he had posted on Snapchat Lucy was able to track down the Airbnb where he had been staying within three hours of his last phone call and spoke to the two British men who were staying there.

Lucy told us: ‘They seemed startled and surprised that I had found them, and I asked them where Jay was.

‘They said he had gone out to try and look for cigarettes and then come back and said he was leaving to try and get a bus back into town.

‘They just seemed shocked that I had managed to find them, and I know the police have spoken to them, but I’ve since found out they have left the country. They need to be spoken to properly.’

Lucy added: ‘What I don’t understand is if he did walk down then why wasn’t he seen by anyone? It’s a busy time of day, the place is full of hikers and holidaymakers, he could have asked them for help or stopped somewhere but no one has seen him at all.’

The Airbnb was rented out by the two men from Friday to Monday, but they stayed on an extra day after being questioned by police following Jay’s disappearance.

Locals have told MailOnline one of the men is known as ‘Johnny Vegas’ and Spanish police confirmed they had the names and passport details of both.

Jay’s frantic mother Debbie arrived on Tenerife last Tuesday after being woken by Lancashire police at home to tell her Jay was missing and she should ‘head out there’ to try and help find him.

At 7am she flew from Manchester to Tenerife with her older son, Zak, 24. Shortly after she arrived Debbie was sent a menacing message on Snapchat that read: ‘Kiss goodbye to your boy, you’re never going to see him again, he owes me a lot of money.’

Debbie is convinced Jay is being held ‘against his will’. Police insist it remains a missing person enquiry and say they are ‘keeping an open mind’ – and ‘haven’t ruled anything out’.

It is not known who sent Debbie these messages and it begs the question that Debbie is asking – was he kidnapped and is he being held to ransom? Did he walk the wrong way because he was trying to get away from someone?

MailOnline has been told the last signal from Jay’s phone pinged at a mast outside the and Mirador la Cruz de Hilda restaurant – around half a mile from the Airbnb.

Friends of Jay’s have trawled the area for days with no sign of him.

On Thursday – three days after he was last seen – Lucy set up the GoFundMe page with a very specific amount of £30,000 being the target. It was smashed within three days of being set up.

The family have said they will not touch the money and will only use it for living expenses if needed while they are in Tenerife.

Initially Debbie was also staying at the Paloma Beach apartments where her son was staying – but she has since move out to another property nearby.

On Friday she had an eight-hour meeting with police which she described as a ‘screaming and shouting’ session after she was told Spanish police had rejected an offer by Lancashire police to help with the search.

Debbie told MailOnline: ‘I don’t see why they turned down the help, surely the more the better. I know it’s their country, but we are having terrible trouble with the language and we need all the help we can get.’

Police have spent the last eight days trawling the Masca gorge where Jay’s phone last pinged using helicopters, drones and dogs – but have come up with nothing.

On Saturday, Jay’s father Warren, 58, and brother Zak visited the site and embraced each other before bursting into tears.

And on Saturday Debbie had told MailOnline that a man had come forward to say he had seen a boy resembling Jay sat with two men on a bench outside the San Fernando Rey church in Santiago del Teide at 6pm on Monday.

The church is around three and a half miles from the rugged Rural de Teno park – and 15 miles from Playa de las Americas where Jay was staying.

They have also pinned their hopes on a grainy CCTV image taken from a webcam at at Santiago de Teide near the church at around the same time showing a male figure, although police have refused to be drawn into whether or not it is Jay.

Certainly it has given the family a crumb of hope and on Sunday Warren and Zak were back at the church putting up missing posters with Jay’s picture.

Warren said: ‘You think, has somebody got him? Because no matter if you were drunk or whatever, you don’t go off that road up there.

‘And there are people up there… you don’t go along that road for more than 20 minutes without somebody stopping you or passing you.

‘I knew right from when I went up there that he wouldn’t have gone (off the road). He isn’t stupid. When I saw the police I asked them, seriously, ‘would you go off that road’ and I think it worked them up a bit.

‘It started out as it being a lad who had gone walking and got lost or that he may have fallen. But it doesn’t make sense. Nobody would walk off that road? Why would he have gone uphill?

‘It’s dangerous, it’s a massive mountain. It’s not just a hill. It was only when I was up there myself (that I noticed). People that go out to a party don’t come up here.’