Why did it take 29 days to find Jay Slater?

 

Why did it take 29 days to find Jay Slater?

Just over a month ago, you probably hadn't heard of Jay Slater.

He was a teenager on a first holiday without his parents in Tenerife, like so many Brits this summer.

Sometimes accidents happen while abroad and occasionally they become tragedies. Few ever hear about them.

Not for Jay, 19, whose family have been thrust into a national spotlight during a month-long search that has captivated millions of people on social media.

Yet the facts in Jay's case now seem relatively simple. He got lost in treacherous terrain and fell to his death.

His family hoped the viral frenzy would end when his body was found last week. But it did not.

Many are now asking one question: why did it take 29 days to find him?

We’ve spent time in Tenerife over the past month inside the search for Jay, reporting on the riddle.

What we've seen raises both questions and answers.

Things went wrong for Jay in the early hours of 17 June, when he decided to get into a car with two men in Playa de Las Americas, the heart of the Spanish island's nightlife.

Those men, reportedly British nationals, drove the apprentice bricklayer about 22 miles (36km) north to an Airbnb in the village of Masca - a tiny settlement surrounded by mountains and ravines.

They were allowed to leave the island after being quickly ruled out of the investigation by Spanish police, the Guardia Civil. Meanwhile, Lancashire Police's offer to help the search was turned down, which is normal.

An immediate focus of the investigation became an image Jay posted on social media app Snapchat, cigarette in hand, tagged at the door of the apartment at 07:30 BST.

It showed he had stayed the night at the Airbnb. Then two phone calls emerged.

His friend Lucy Law received one at around 08:30 BST. Jay told her he was lost, had 1% battery on his phone and needed water. 

In a video call to fellow friend Brad Hargreaves, Jay was walking on rough, stony ground, saying he was trekking 11 hours home after missing a bus.

How did he end up in the mountains? 

Ofelia Medina Hernandez, who made the last sighting of him at around 08:00 BST, claims Jay asked about the next bus – 10am – but might not have understood the answer. He then walked.

Whether further evidence exists to point to why Jay was up in the mountains, or why he wandered into such dangerous terrain in that 90-minute window until he was reported missing at 09:00 BST, is unclear.

Investigators have seemingly been unable to answer this. If a coroner in the UK decides to hold an inquest, more detail might emerge publicly.

Did police miss Jay's body?

Thanks to Jay's phone pinging a mast, Spanish police had a location to work off. 08:50 BST in the Rural de Teno park.

Search teams sprang into action on difficult terrain. It's an area of thick vegetation, steep ravines and cliff-faces.

Weather conditions lurch between 30C heat and sudden drops in both temperature and visibility as mist rolls in from the sea.

In the snippets of information shared with the media, Guardia Civil press officers referred to specialist sniffer dog teams from Madrid, helicopter crews and drones scouring the rough terrain.

Fast forward to last week, and human remains were found in the ravine close to the phone mast. The police found the body, not the various external search teams and TikTokers who joined in.

Through fingerprint testing, it was confirmed by the police and Canary Islands Higher Court of Justice to be Jay.

His injuries were consistent with a fall onto rocky ground from height.

Days of searches of this area had found nothing. Did they unwittingly walk past him first time around?

The Guardia Civil have declined to answer any questions about this. They told us journalists that "we don't give details of the investigation".

Secret search continued with machetes

What few knew until now beyond a tight-knit circle in Tenerife, was that after the police formally called off the search two weeks in, it actually continued.

It appears the Guardia Civil may have hoped that announcing they had stopped searching would calm some of the attention around the case - as the search had certainly not ended.

Out of view of the main paths and trails around Masca, in an area called Juan Lopez, mountaineers with machetes had been abseiling into inaccessible areas and hacking away at vegetation.

The Guardia Civil said it carried out "discreet" searches to deter "curious onlookers".

Questions remain as to whether this was the best strategy. Perhaps an approach more aligned to British police in missing person's searches where constant updates are provided for transparency, could have prevented some of the wild conspiracies.

It is a question that Lancashire Police also had to grapple with during a similar torrent of ghoulish intrigue that dominated the search for Nicola Bulley in Lancashire, just 24 miles (38km) from Jay's hometown of Oswaldtwistle.

Mock kidnap and fake screams

While searches were ongoing, on TikTok, Instagram reels, X and Facebook, fantastical tales of Moroccan mafia groups or international drug smuggling rings were woven in with information from Jay's past.

His family endured outright lies and content such as fake recordings of screams suggesting he had been murdered.

Jay's mum Debbie was hit with messages from people claiming they had kidnapped her son.

Rachel Hargreaves, Brad's mother, who flew to Tenerife along with Debbie, tried to manage the flood of comments and messages on the family's official Facebook group.

She soon became a target herself, telling the BBC that some anonymous trolls had created a fake account in the name of her late mother.

At one stage, Debbie herself posted in one unofficial Facebook group dedicated to Jay Slater "theories", begging for some compassion. A flood of negative comments and cynicism followed.

There might be some answers to come

For Jay's family, the next priority is getting his body home.

Matthew Searle, chief executive of missing person's charity LBT Global, told the BBC the paperwork should be complete in about a week - though he indicated that the exact arrangements would be kept under wraps to protect the family's privacy.

Even now, it appears that amateur sleuths and trolls are trying to intervene in the process of flying his body home. Some people are searching online for autopsy results.

If an inquest is opened in the UK it could see witnesses, such as the men who were in the Airbnb with Jay, called to give evidence and answer questions.

With the evidence pointing to an accidental fall, the coroner might certify the cause of death without an inquest. The family's wishes will also be considered, though.

The disappearance and death of their "beautiful boy", a "living nightmare" as his family put it, will leave deep scars for the whole family and Jay's many friends.

But so too the baffling ordeal of being the victims of social media at its very worst.

Maybe this is the new norm for the modern age of high-profile missing person's cases, posing a challenge to police forces in the years to come.

Back in Oswaldtwistle, the people who knew Jay hope that uncomfortable chapter of the story, at least, is over.