Five mysteries about Jay Slater’s Tenerife disappearance from bus stop riddle to sinister motives of trolls
AS Jay Slater set off on his first lads holiday abroad, his mum Debbie was apprehensive.
Like every parent, Debbie would have naturally been worried about everything from flights, to accommodation and wild nightlife – but she swallowed her concerns and encouraged Jay to “go and have fun.”
Never in a million years could she have imagined the horror she now faces.
Jay vanished without trace on the innocuous island of Tenerife on Monday.
A huge search is now underway to find the 19-year-old who flew out to the island with two friends only to disappear following a rave on Sunday night.
Jay, an apprentice bricklayer, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancs, met some new pals at the NRG music festival and told his friend Lucy Law he would be staying with them overnight.
They are believed to have used a hire car to travel to a property in the rural, mountainous area of Parque Rural de Teno in the west of Tenerife – a 10-hour walk from Jay’s accommodation in Los Cristianos in the south.
Jay called pal Lucy the next day to say he had missed the bus home, had cut his leg on a cactus and was lost in a rural area without water.
His battery was down to 1 per cent as he tried to navigate his way back using a maps app on his phone.
Nobody has seen him since.
Mum Debbie, who has since flown out to the island, said: “It’s a nightmare, it’s just an absolute living nightmare.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. I just want my baby back. Please, just anybody who can help, just look for him.”
Jay’s disappearance is steeped in mystery amid rumours, speculation and a bizarre series of social media messages sent to the family, including one that claimed he had been kidnapped.
Ex Coronation Street star Vicky Entwhistle, who used to play Janice Battersby in the ITV soap, is the goddaughter of Jay’s granny.
She shared one of the missing posters circulating online, adding: “My God Mother’s Grandson has gone missing. His Mother has flown out 7pm. To join the police search.
“Hope to God they find him. Please pray for him.”
Here we look at the questions which remain unanswered as the hunt for Jay enters its fourth day.
Why wasn’t he spotted?
The park where Jay vanished is frequented by walkers and pals say there’s a restaurant 10 minutes away from where he stayed overnight.
Friend Lucy, who was on holiday with Jay and last saw him leaving the music festival, described his disappearance as “suspicious and weird”.
She said: “Jay’s not stupid, it was just before 9am in the morning when he rang me in broad daylight and the area he was in is full of hikers.
“I’ve been up there every day since I got that phone call from Jay that made me panic and so many walkers and other people are up there.
“It’s secluded but the spot where he last made phone contact with me is near a main road and he would have had the wherewithal to flag someone down, to wave someone down and ask for help.
“There’s something weird going on. It’s suspicious. You’re telling me someone’s not seen him? There’s a restaurant 10 minutes away that he would have seen or walked past.
“Fair enough, it didn’t open for another two hours but if that were me I would have sat and waited at the restaurant until it opened and as soon as it opened I would have said, ‘Please can you put my phone on charge’ and then I would have rung someone. I would have rung for a taxi. It’s suspicious and it’s weird.”
Could he really have been taken?
Mum Debbie believes someone may have kidnapped Jay because nobody has seen him.
She said: “There is a main road, there’s bus stops there, there’s cafe’s, it’s a hiking route.
“There’s people about, people must have seen him. And if people haven’t seen him, someone must have taken him.
“I’ve got a bad feeling. I’m being warned there’s a lot of bad people in Tenerife.
“I just think he’s being held against his will. He’s not a stupid lad. He wouldn’t have gone walking down bloody mountains.”
She said that, despite her fears, she’s had no ransom demand.
Despite Tenerife being relatively safe for the 2.3million Brits who visit each year, the island has a darker side.
Last November six Hell’s Angels were arrested for coercion and making serious threats.
Who were his new friends?
Jay left the NRG festival with two new pals who had hired a car.
It’s believed they travelled to a property in Rural de Teno park, and Jay’s final Snapchat picture was an out-of-focus image of a hand holding cigarettes in Buenavista del Norte, which sits within the park.
As rescue crews, sniffer dogs and police scour the remote area for signs of Jay, friend Lucy revealed she had tracked down the house where Jay stayed – and was told he had left on Monday morning.
The two men said Jay went out for cigarettes before going back to the property and saying he wanted to go home. It’s not known where he would have bought the cigarettes.
Lucy said: “We managed to find the house. I knocked on the door and there were two people there.
“They told me Jay had spoken to the next door neighbours and they’d told him there was a bus every 10 minutes back down to Los Cristianos.
“The bus stop was right next to the house. So obviously if he’d gone to get the bus he wouldn’t have got lost because it (the stop) was visible from the front door.”
Did trolls hinder search?
Mum Debbie’s fears her son has been kidnapped were compounded by a chilling message she received over Snapchat when she touched down in Tenerife to help search for her son.
Debbie says she got a message which read: “Kiss goodbye to your boy, you’re never going to see him again, he owes me a lot of money.”
She says twisted Brits with ‘northern accents’ had been calling her from hidden numbers claiming they had Jay held captive because he owed them cash.
She said: “Some of the phone calls I’ve been getting have been horrible. I just don’t know why people would want to do things like this.
“I’ve been getting a lot of prank calls. It’s sickening.”
The determined mum added: “It’s not putting me off and I want to keep this in the news because it’s going to increase the chances of Jay being found safe and well which is obviously what we are praying for.”
Cops say they are keeping an “open mind” about Jay’s disappearance and are now searching his hotel room for clues.
Debbie fears trolls were also behind a misleading report which led police to switch their search for her son from the rural park back to Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Americas – losing precious time in the hunt.
Officers refocused their efforts on the area where Jay was staying after alleged sightings of the teen.
He wouldn’t have gone walking down mountains
Jay's fearful mum, Debbie
Debbie said: “’Someone has given a false lead to the police saying he’s rang a taxi down to Los Cristianos.
‘If this was the case he would have rang his mum or one of us. I know him well and he would not have us worrying.
‘Someone is trying to deter the police from him being up there. I’m starting to think he’s been kidnapped.”
Could he have taken a wrong turn?
When Jay called best friend Lucy he said he had cut his leg on a cactus, was thirsty and lost.
His phone had just one per cent battery and died out, showing his last location as the Rural de Teno park.
Jay told Lucy he was attempting to find his way back to their accommodation in the south of the island but was not dressed for walking, wearing a white T-shirt with shorts and trainers. He had no hat and no water.
Jay also told Lucy he had cut his leg on a cactus. Is it possible that he ventured drastically away from the road?
Chris Elkington, editor of Canarian Weekly newspaper, told the BBC the park area where Jay vanished could be treacherous.
He said: “It’s a rural park where you get a lot of hiking trails, it’s very mountainous, quite sparse, quite barren. Quite deserty in a lot of ways, with some very deep ravines and valleys.
“It’s certainly somewhere you would not want to be in normal conditions without the correct footwear, particularly without water.”
Temperatures at the park were around 20C at around 8.30am on Monday when Jay went missing, but later reached 25C of full sun by afternoon.
His stepdad Andy Watson, 63, said the family were worried Jay could have taken the wrong turn as he trekked from where he had stayed with two English lads back to his accommodation.
Andy told The Sun: “It’s really worrying. It feels like a blur at the moment.
“Jay is very street wise and he’s no mug but if it was dark and he had no touch on his phone he could have gone the wrong way and become more lost than he was.”
Local journalist Clio O’Flynn, who knows the area well, told GB News that the teen could have found himself in trouble after taking a wrong turn.
She said: “From what we gather, Jay would have gone off the road because there’s only one road up to the area that his phone was last pinged from.
“If he wasn’t on the main road, the only speculation that you can conclude is that he went off the road and onto one of the unmarked paths to try and make his way down to the coast.
“There are gulfs, there are ravines, these are volcanic zones, so they do have hidden traps if you’re walking down.”