BREAKING NEWS
Jay Slater search team provide major update on the men who were last seen with 19-year-old – as cactus clue narrows their mountain search hunt for missing Brit
By Nick Pisa In Tenerife and Cameron Roy and Shannon Mcguigan
Published: 13:49 BST, 29 June 2024 | Updated: 14:03 BST, 29 June 2024
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The team undergoing a huge search for Jay Slater today has provided a major update on the men who were last seen with 19-year-old. Investigators have now confirmed the two mystery men who invited him back to their Airbnb hours before he vanished ‘don’t have any relevance whatsoever for the case’. The latest twist comes after a private investigator previously called the men ‘key witnesses’ in the case. However little is known about the men, who have not spoken publicly, besides the fact that they are British, black and in their late 30s to early 40s. One is said to go by the nickname Johnny Vegas and one is described as around 6ft, stocky and with short dark hair. He was seen with an orange wristband but little else is known about the other man.
Guardia Civil agent Cipriano Martin has now confirmed the two mystery men who invited Jay Slater back to their Airbnb hours before he vanished ‘don’t have any relevance whatsoever for the case’
The ‘army of volunteers’ have answered the Spanish police’s call for help and are helping them comb the rugged mountain area where the missing raver Jay Slater, 19, went missing following a night out in Tenerife’s Playa de las Americas resort on June 17
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Everything we know about the mystery men who spent final hours with Jay Slater
Friends of Jay were sent a picture of him inside the car of the two men and this has been shared with investigating officers. The development about the two men came while the search for Jay was stepped up today after a huge new hunt got underway after Spanish police opened the operation up to volunteers for the first time. As volunteers gathered to scour the area where Jay was last seen, Cipriano Martin, head of the Civil Guard’s Greim mountain rescue unit, was quizzed about the two men who were originally thought to be key to the investigation.
Asked whether he’d spoken to the two men who were in the Airbnb and spent time with Jay before he vanished, he said: ‘We’re mountain specialists and we’re in charge of searching here, and it’s the Civil Guard investigators who have been responsible for the investigation, those men have been spoken to and they don’t have any relevance whatsoever for the case.’
As volunteers gathered to scour the area where Jay was last seen, Cipriano Martin, head of the Civil Guard’s Greim mountain rescue unit, was quizzed about the two men who were originally thought to be key to the investigation
Pictures from the scene today show teams of volunteers joining the search
A view of the Guardia Civil agents and volunteers during the search for the young Briton Jay Slater in the Masca ravine
Jay called his friend Lucy Mae Law (pictured), 18, to say he was ‘lost in the mountains, with no water, one percent battery’ and he had cut his leg on a cactus. The cactus is being used as a clue in the search for Jay today
But as the investigators ruled out the two men’s use to finding out what happened to Jay, another possible lead involving a cactus could help them in their search for Jay. Asked whether the principal information they have to go on is the last place Jay’s phone ‘pinged’ from, Mr Martin replied: ‘That’s right. We can’t come up with too many conjectures either. The clues are based on the information we have. ‘Another of the things that leads us to consider that hypothesis is when he rings his friend Lucy and says he’s cut himself on a cactus and he’s worried because he doesn’t know whether it’s poisonous or not, and she tells him not to worry that it’s not poisonous. ‘But for that to happen you have to leave the road because you’re not going to cut yourself on a cactus being on the road and he’s had to go into the mountains obviously.’ ‘Well, we’ve been searching for lots of days and with the search today, we’re talking about 30 people.’ When asked if on the day
