The search for missing British teen Jay Slater now enters its fourth day, with many questions still left unanswered.
The 19-year-old had gone to the Canary Islands with friends for the New Rave Generation music festival last week. On Sunday, June 16, the apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, left the festival and he hasn’t been heard from since around 8.15am the next day.
Authorities have searched his holiday apartment on the Spanish island Tenerife to find potential clues with one theory being that he was taken against his will – he was due to return to the UK later today.
READ MORE: Jay Slater’s mum fears Brit lad may have been ‘taken against his will’ after false alarm
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However, the search continues as fears over his safety ramp up – and this is what we do and don’t know so far.
The timeline
Sunday evening, June 16: Jay is out with friends when he opts to stay out and go off with other pals, one of whom has a hire car
At 8.35pm, Jay is seen in the final Snapchat clip before his disappearance, wearing a grey t-shirt with a green trim.
On Monday June 17 at 8.15am, friend Lucy receives a call from Jay to say he is lost in a rural area, thirsty and has only 1% battery on his phone. He tells his friends he cut his leg on a cactus, missed the bus back and was attempting to walk back using a maps app on his phone.
(Image: Getty Images)
At 8.50am Jay’s phone dies.
At 9.04am police in Tenerife are alerted to the disappearance.
Tuesday, 2am: Jay’s mum Debbie Duncan and step-dad Andy Watson are alerted to his disappearance when police officers knock on their door.
11.35am: Jay’s mum and brother Zak land in Tenerife after catching the first flight out.
Wednesday June 19: Police change search location after tip-off, but return to original site.
Thursday (today): Jay was due to fly back to the UK on a RyanAir flight at 10.15am to Manchester Airport already delayed by 10 minutes.
Last known location
Jay’s last known whereabouts were in Reno Rural Park, a popular spot for mountain hikers and a 10-hour walk away from where he was staying.
Police had been searching the park but confirmed the search operation had moved to the south of Tenerife – the tourist resorts of Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Americas, near to where the teenager was staying.
(Image: MEN Media)
However, in a dramatic u-turn police later returned to the mountains in north-west Tenerife. They had switched their focus southward after an alleged sighting of the teen which turned out to be false.
Last phone call
Around 8.15am on Saturday, Jay called his friend Lucy, and terrifyingly warned her he was thirsty. While sounding disorientated, he told her he was in need of water and had just 1% battery on his phone.
Lucy recalled that Jay said: “I don’t know where I am, I need a drink and my phone is about to die.”
Final social media post
As the extensive search continues for the missing Brit, a Snapchat video made with friends reveals some of his last shared moments with friends, before he vanished.
(Image: Getty Images/500px)
In the video, Jay is laughing and smiling with a female friend during Sunday festivities, at one point giving the camera a thumbs up. He is seen wearing a grey t-shirt with a green panel on either shoulder.
What the family has said
Andy Watson – the partner of Jay’s mum Debbie Duncan – has spoken out about the abuse the family has been dealing with, as well as the bizarre demands of someone claiming to be a psychic who demanded flights out to Tenerife.
The 63-year-old said: “They told Debbie: ‘If you paid for my flights to Tenerife I will tell you where he is – it’s just despicable.
(Image: Instagram)
“Some people just seem to thrive off people’s agony. The worst is not knowing what’s happened. That gets to you. I know what his mum is going through. Mums and sons are close and they are the same.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. It’s terrible.”
What don’t we know
Apart from the obvious of where Jay actually is, there is much speculation over why he never stopped somewhere to charge his phone, whether the disappearance had connections to an alleged past history, and why nobody saw him despite parts of the area he went missing in being heavily populated.
Last night, we reported how Jay’s mum was sent a chilling message on Snapchat warning her ‘kiss goodbye to your boy’ as fears grow that he has been kidnapped.
She said: “There’s no ransom demand come in yet but I got a Snapchat about 10 minutes after I got off the plane saying ‘Kiss goodbye to your boy, you’re never going to see him again, he owes me a lot of money.’ which I passed on to police with the number it came from because I had my wits about me at the time and got my eldest son Zac to take a screen grab before it disappeared.”
Meanwhile the search continues into its fourth day.
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