The ‘totally devastated’ mother of Jay Slater has demanded answers tonight after a body was found in the hunt for her missing son.
Slater, 19, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, vanished on the morning of June 17 on the Spanish holiday island of Tenerife, prompting a huge search to try and find him.
Spanish police called off the official search after 13 days, but on Monday announced they had discovered a body close to where his mobile phone is believed to have lost reception 29 days ago. Formal identification has not yet taken place, but officers say that ‘everything is pointing to it being’ the missing teen.
His grief-stricken mother Debbie Duncan, 55, has ‘lots of questions which she hopes will be answered in the coming days,’ a source close to the family said.
‘Debbie is completely devastated,’ the insider told The Sun, adding that the ‘hardest’ part for Duncan is that the remains were ‘found so close to the original search site’.
It comes as the family’s detective has revealed that Duncan and the teen’s father Warren Slater were targeted by trolls in a sick hostage video that saw them falsely claim ‘We have your son’, The Mirror reported.
Mark Williams-Thomas, a former Scotland Yard cop who has been working with Slater’s family over the last few weeks, suspects the fraudsters were trying to extort the teen’s loved ones for a ‘significant sum of money’.
Jay Slater with his mother Debbie Duncan, who has been searching for him ever since he went missing on June 17
Members of a mountain rescue team (pictured during the search) from the Spanish Civil Guard found a body on Monday in their search for Slater. In response to the discovery, his mother Debbie Duncan, 55, has ‘lots of questions which she hopes will be answered in the coming days’, a source close to the family has claimed
A source close to Slater’s family has said the news that a body has been found so close to the search site is ‘hard to take’ for Duncan.
‘It means it’s entirely possible they have walked past his body whilst searching for him,’ the insider told The Sun.
Noting how Slater’s family had been ‘dreading’ an update like this from Spanish authorities, the source claimed that for Duncan it ‘hasn’t completely sunk in yet’.
They added: ‘It seems incredible so many people walked that area and yet he was so close. As we have seen with mountainous terrain and ravines, it does happen — no matter how hard that is to believe.’
Slater’s family endured conspiracy theories and ‘awful comments’ being posted online during the search for the apprentice bricklayer, including hoax hostage videos.
Williams-Thomas told The Mirror the family received ‘two videos posted of separate people, meant to be Jay, having been beaten up’.
One clip allegedly featured the ‘We have your son’, with the detective saying it was ‘created for publication by someone wanting to give the impression they had Jay held hostage’.
He explained that ‘within hours’ they had established that Slater was not the individual depicted in the videos.
The investigator also revealed that the family have been contacted by people who said ‘they have Jay and will give information in exchange for a sum of money’.
‘What has taken up the most time has been investigating the many theories and the false information that gathered traction on social media and then subsequently in the media,’ he told the newspaper.
‘You will understand that the family lived in hope of every new piece of information that Jay was alive, so they all needed to be investigated.’
Authorities have not yet released the exact location in which they found the body, but it is understood that the remains were discovered in a remote area near the village of Masca
The force released video footage of rescuers climbing rock faces and battling through scrub as they carried out the search
Part of the clip shows two members of the search team being winched out of the area by helicopter after the body had been found and recovered
Members of a mountain rescue team from the Spanish Civil Guard found a body on Monday in their search for Slater, who vanished on the holiday island of Tenerife last month.
Authorities have not yet released the exact location in which they found the body, but it is understood that the remains were discovered in a remote area near the village of Masca.
While formal identification has not yet taken place, the remains were found with the 19-year-old’s clothes and possessions near his last known location, missing persons charity LBT Global said.
The body was found in an ‘inaccessible’ and very remote part of the island, which the BBC reported is part of the reason it ‘took so long to find any evidence’.
The terrain is described as ‘dense’ and is understood to be full of uneven ground and shrubland. There is also no sign of any emergency services in the nearby village.
The force released video footage of rescuers climbing rock faces and battling through scrub as they carried out the search.
Part of the clip shows two members of the search team being winched out of the area by helicopter after the body had been found and recovered.
Spanish police called off the search for the missing apprentice bricklayer at the end of June after helicopters, drones and search dogs were deployed to find him.
But in its statement on Monday, the force said teams had not stopped searching for Slater every day.
The search for Slater had been carried out ‘under a secrecy order from the court in charge of the investigation’, LBC reported.
Officials had been ‘carrying on with the search, unbeknownst to anyone’ in a bid to stop internet sleuths from searching themselves.
‘The discovery was possible thanks to the incessant and discreet search carried out by the Civil Guard during these 29 days, in which the natural space was preserved so that it would not be filled with onlookers,’ its statement read.
Tenerife’s Guardia Civil said on Monday that officers are waiting for the results of a post-mortem examination to confirm the cause of death.
Slater could have fallen in the steep and inaccessible area where he was discovered, the force said.
Slater had attended the NRG music festival with two friends before his disappearance, and his last known location was the Rural de Teno Park in the north of the Canary Island, which was about an 11-hour walk from his accommodation.
He had travelled to an Airbnb in Masca after a night out, but the two men said to have rented the property were later ruled ‘not relevant’ to the case.
LBT Global, which supports the families of British people missing overseas, said: ‘LBT Global is saddened to announce that a body found in Tenerife does look to be that of Jay Slater.
‘It is understood the body was found close to the site of his mobile phone’s last location.
‘Although formal identification is yet to be carried out, the body was found with Mr Slater’s possessions and clothes.
‘A post-mortem examination and forensic enquiries will follow.
‘LBT Global are supporting the family at this distressing time and ask for everyone to afford them space and privacy to come to terms with the news.’
Supporters raised more than £54,000 to help fund the hunt for the teenager.
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.