British teenager Jay Slater has vanished without a trace
Some people claim to have seen him. The 19-year-old, from Lancashire, was known to have left the three-day NRG festival in Tenerife on the evening of Sunday, June 16 and has since disappeared. While his friends returned to their accommodation in the south of the island, Jay went off with two British men, who had a hire car, back to their Airbnb located just outside the northern village of Masca.
On Monday morning, he rang his friend Lucy Law to warn her that his phone battery was on one per cent and that he was thirsty, but said he would walk the 11-hour trek back to their accommodation after missing the bus. Concerned for his safety, Lucy sounded the alarm to the police and ever since, a major search operation has been working to find the apprentice bricklayer.
Here, the Mirror takes a look at all the supposed sightings of Jay
From dancing at the festival to the recent claim he was spotted watching the Euros. Tenerife locals believe they may have spotted the missing teen watching Euros matches, the mayor of a town close to where he vanished has claimed.
Mayor Emilio Jose Navarro, of Santiago del Teide, said some locals who reported sightings of Jay have already been interviewed by police, including a few who think they may have seen the missing teen on the coast watching Euros matches. Navarro said: “We know the police are investigating the CCTV images. They have asked for the town hall’s security cameras and they are also working with the company that handles those cameras.”
CCTV in church square
Jay’s family shared a grainy CCTV image that shows a possible sighting of Jay in the same town where locals claimed to have spotted him watching the football – Santiago del Teide. In the photo, a figure is seen walking past a church at roughly 6pm last Monday, around 7km from Masca, where Jay was last known to have wandered through.
His mum Debbie Duncan said of the possible sighting: “Someone has come forward to say they saw someone who they thought was Jay walking back down the road sat on a bench. He was with two men looking a bit worse for wear, and they were by a church, this guy has come forward and told the police about it and they are looking into it. “We don’t know if it was Jay for sure, but it’s a start. They said it was about 6pm which is 10 hours after he was seen by the lady in the village. But if it was him what was he doing there and who are these two men?”
They are showing the picture to people in the village along with posters of the missing teen to see if they can jog people’s memories.
‘Walking fast’
On the morning Jay went missing, the host of the Airbnb where Jay had last been located said she saw him walking. Ophelia, the owner of the holiday rental Casa Abuela Tina, said speaking outside the cottage: “It’s dangerous walking around here, it’s easy to lose yourself. “He walked up the road when I saw him for the last time. He was alone. He was walking normally, though he was fast.”
A Tenerife local, named only as Araceli, who works in the business adjoining the rental property, also claimed locals had witnessed Jay when sharing insight into the two men with the Mirror. She said: “I never saw the missing boy, but I know people saw him walking on his own. I saw the two British men who stayed here. They came in for cafe con leche a couple of times. One was aged about 40. The other one was slightly younger.”
Outside the Airbnb
Jay posted his last photo on Snapchat, smoking on the steps at the white-washed house, before he vanished. He had been in touch with his friend, Lucy Mae Law, shortly before 9am that morning, to warn her that his phone battery was about to die. Amid the search for her friend, Lucy drove around the area until she found the property, using the mountains and flower beds as markers to locate it. “We managed to find the house,” she said. “I knocked on the door and there were two people there.”
The occupants told Lucy how Jay had gone out for a cigarette before going back in and saying he wanted to go home. “They told me he’d spoken to the next door neighbours and they’d told him there was a bus every 10 minutes back down to Los Cristianos,” said Lucy. “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