Bogus ‘ransom demands’ and fake content are posing new challenges to the Jay Slater investigation, according to a TV investigator helping with the probe.
Yesterday, Spanish police called off the manhunt for the 19-year-old following his mysterious disappearance on June 17. It is believed the apprentice bricklayer, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, left the NRG Tenerife Weekender festival in the early hours of the morning before reportedly heading to an Airbnb in Masca – a remote hilltop hamlet in the northwest.
Efforts including a mountain rescue team, sniffer dogs and even social media sleuths flying out to the island have been unsuccessful, but a Guardia Civil spokeswoman confirmed the case is still open and that there are ‘several lines of investigation’.
READ MORE: Jay Slater ‘may not be missing’ as ex-cop claims ‘things just don’t add up’
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However, Mark Williams-Thomas, an investigative journalist and former police officer, has slammed ‘online detectives’ for spouting fake news surrounding the teen’s disappearance.
(Image: Stan Kujawa)
Williams-Thomas, who is currently in Tenerife, has been in contact with Slater’s family and has been speaking to ‘important’ witnesses to craft a ‘detailed picture’ of Jay’s movements before he went missing. He has suggested the family use the money raised on GoFundMe to pay for experts conducting investigations.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter) he wrote: “So much fake content has been created in the Jay Slater case – mocked-up chats , messages, pictures. It’s a very different world we live in today with social media and online detectives .
“[The] overwhelming response from people has been very positive – people just wanting to help, even though most have no direct info, just what they have read, seen or think. [But there’s] also a number of people making vile threats and ransom demands (all checked out and have no credibility).”
(Image: MEN Media)
The professional sleuth added that the ‘worldwide media and public attention’ the case has attracted adds ‘new challenges’ to the investigation. Conspiracy theories around Slater’s disappearance have long tarnished the investigation. ‘Arm chair’ detectives have circulated bizarre stories including that he is living in the wild like Tarzan, is ‘stuck to a cactus’ and that he was ‘waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus’.
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