What happened to Jay Slater? Cause of death revealed ahead of funeral
Slater's devastated family have pledged to give him “the send-off he deserves” later this month.
British teenager Jay Slater died instantly following a fall, a post mortem examination has revealed ahead of his funeral.
A body found in Tenerife's Rural de Teno Park last month following an extensive search of the area was confirmed to be that of the 19-year-old.
The apprentice bricklayer, from Oswaldtwistle, in Lancashire, was returned to the UK last week following his death from traumatic head injuries, consistent with a fall from height.
His mother, Debbie Duncan, has now promised to give him “the send-off he deserves” later this month.
Mourners planning to attend his funeral on August 10 have been requested to wear blue in his memory for a “celebration of life service” at Accrington Cemetery Chapel.
Slater was in Tenerife on holiday and attended the NRG music festival with two friends before his disappearance.
According to the Spanish Civil Guard, it is thought he may have fallen in the mountainous area where his body was discovered while attempting to walk back to his accommodation.
A statement from his family paid tribute to a "loving son", "cherished brother" and "treasured grandson".
It added: “After Jay left Rhyddings High School he went on to become an apprentice bricklayer with the PH Build group, a job he greatly enjoyed.
“At the young age of five Jay started playing football for Huncoat United FC until the age of 17 and also did a few seasons with the Sunday team at St Joesph’s too.
“He also loved spending time chilling out with his friends.
“Jay’s love of music and dance started at a very young age. He loved attending music festivals and events across the country and also loved to socialise and meet new people.”
Slater went missing on 17 June in a remote national park on the Canary Islands archipelago.
Matt Searle, CEO of LBT Global, a charity which supports the families of people missing abroad, told the BBC: "Debbie broke down on the phone when she heard that news. When the confirmation came through all hope was gone. There's no looking back now, no 'Maybe it's the wrong person' or 'Maybe it's going to change', it's there in the cold light of day."
What we know happened
Sunday 16 June: Slater attends the NRG music festival with friends at Papagayo nightclub in the tourist resort of Playa de las Americas in the south of the island.
Monday 17 June: In the early hours of Monday morning, Slater leaves the festival and goes to stay in a holiday apartment used by two British men he'd met over the course of the night.
The property has been named as Casa Abuela Tina, a holiday home annexed to a bar and restaurant on the edge of Masca. It is understood to have been rented by two British men who are believed to have checked out on Wednesday 19 June before flying back to the UK.
One of those men, Ayub Qassim, was questioned by Spanish police after Slater disappeared but was allowed to return to Britain with police telling him he had no relevance to the case.
The Airbnb was near the village of Masca, on the north-west of the island, around 19 miles from Playa de las Americas, which is near where Slater and his friends were staying.
At 7.30am, Slater posts a picture on Snapchat from the doorway of the property where he rested for a while and tagged himself as being in Rural de Teno park. Slater calls his friend, Lucy Law, at 8.30am, telling her he had attempted to walk back to his accommodation after missing his bus. The journey would have taken more than 10 hours on foot.
In the frantic last phone call, Slater said he had "cut his leg" on a cactus and had "no idea where he was". Law says her friend told her he was “lost in the mountains, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, he desperately needed a drink and his phone was on 1%”.
Slater's phone runs out of battery shortly afterwards. This left his last known location as the Rural de Teno park. Slater was reported missing at 9.04am that morning.
Tuesday 18 June: Local police and mountain rescue teams scour Rural de Teno park for Slater, after his friends spent the previous day searching to no avail. The apprentice bricklayer's family fly out to Tenerife to join the search.
Wednesday 19 June: The search is temporarily moved to the Los Cristianos area in the south of the island because of a potential lead, but this is quickly discounted and the search returns north.
Slater’s mother, Debbie Duncan, says she feared her son had “been taken against his will”.
Read more: Conspiracy theorists ‘hindering’ Jay Slater search, says his mother (The Telegraph)
Thursday 20 June: The search returns to Rural de Teno park, around the village of Masca. Emergency workers meet in various locations throughout the day, combing bushes, overgrown terrain, hillsides and rivers, but fail to find the missing teenager.
Friday 21 June: Spanish police reject an offer of support from Lancashire Constabulary as the hunt continues.
Police, firefighters and search and rescue personnel comb a vast area of land in and around the village of Masca. Rescuers carefully look through dead palm trees covering a river at the bottom of the hillside near to an Airbnb property Slater had reportedly been driven to.
The owner of the property tells reporters she saw Slater walk up the road past her property but did not see him again.
Saturday 22 June: Slater’s mother issues a direct plea to her missing son on the sixth day of the hunt, saying: “We just need you home.”
Firefighters appear to conduct the majority of the searches as they wear helmets to tackle dangerous hillside terrain in Tenerife. The search parties seem noticeably smaller compared with other days – with only a handful of emergency workers visible in Masca and surrounding areas.
Sunday 23 June: Search teams narrow their efforts on small buildings close to where Slater’s phone last pinged.
Officers from the Guardia Civil in the Canary Island can be seen circling two structures at the bottom of a ravine in Rural de Teno Park.
Efforts appear to be solely focused on the one area after days of searches in the village of Masca and the surrounding landscape.
Read more: TikTokker who shared theory about Jay Slater's whereabouts was right as body retrieved from location he predicted (Manchester Evening News)
Thursday 27 June: Slater’s mother says she will use donations from the GoFundMe appeal set up by Ms Law, to fund her stay on Tenerife.
Duncan says £36,000 raised by more than 3,200 individual donations will be used to support mountain rescue teams, and to cover her own accommodation and food costs during her extended stay on the island.
Friday 28 June: The Guardia Civil appeal for volunteer associations, such as firefighters, and individual volunteers who are experts in rugged terrain to assist in a “busqueda masiva”, or massive search, to take place on Saturday.
Saturday 29 June: A renewed search for Slater gets underway in Masca, co-ordinated to take in a steep rocky area, including ravines, trails and paths.
Sunday 30 June: Spanish police call off the search for the missing teenager. In a statement, a Guardia Civil spokesperson says: "The search operation has now finished, although the case remains open.”
However, Slater's family say that nothing has changed for them and that they will continue to look for him.
Read more: "Love you always brother...": Jay Slater's friend who he partied with in Tenerife pays tribute after body found in search (Manchester Evening News)
Tuesday 2 July: Duncan says “words cannot describe the pain and agony we are experiencing” after searches fail to trace her missing son.
In a statement issued through British overseas missing persons charity LBT Global, she says the land search for her son has been called off, but thanks the Guardia Civil who she says “worked tirelessly up in the mountains where Jay’s last phone call was traced”.
Wednesday 3 July: In a statement on the GoFundMe appeal Get Jay Slater Home, which at this point has raised almost £50,000, Duncan thanks the “vast” generosity of donors, saying her family are “grateful for all of your support and kindness during this unimaginable time”.
She writes that part of the funds will be used to support volunteers hunting for Slater in the mountains of Tenerife.
Read more: Tenerife mapped: Where was Jay Slater last seen and where was the body found? (The Independent)
Sunday 14 July: The missing teenager’s mother speaks of her “heartache” and criticises “awful comments and conspiracy theories” as it approaches a month since her son's disappearance.
In a statement released through LBT Global, Duncan says: “As we approach four weeks of our beautiful Jay’s disappearance, we cannot put into words the heartache we are suffering as a family.”
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She says the family wish to thank the public for “their continued support and well wishes” and praises the British Embassy and police for “doing all they can to support us”.
Slater's mother also announces that some of the £53,000 raised on GoFundMe was being used to fly in a search team from the Netherlands with drones and specialist dogs. As the team, named Signi Zoekhonden, prepared to board a flight on Sunday from Brussels Airport, volunteer Marieke Krans told the BBC: “We are very committed to come and we are confident in the dogs and in ourselves."
Monday 15 July: A body is found in the search for Slater. LBT Global says that, 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 near the village of Masca.
Having previously said the search was off, the force appear to contradict this claim in a new statement, which says: “After 29 constant days of searching the lifeless body of the young man has been found in the Masca area.
The force says Slater could have fallen in the steep and inaccessible area where the body was discovered.
Tuesday 16 July: The Canary Islands High Court of Justice confirmed the identity of the body with the use of fingerprint technology after the remains were found near the village of Masca in Tenerife on Monday.
A spokesman for the court said the post-mortem examination report determined that the injuries he sustained were consistent with an accidental fall.
"We have a positive ID... Fingerprinting confirms that the body belongs to Jay Slater and the death was due to multiple traumas compatible with a fall in the mountainous area," a spokesperson at the Canary Islands High Court of Justice said.
Debbie Duncan, the mother of Jay Slater, said in statement that the confirmation of her son’s death in Tenerife was the “worst news”, adding: “I just can’t believe this could happen to my beautiful boy. Our hearts are broken.”
Read more: Jay Slater's devastated family 'being supported' after body found in Tenerife - full statement (Manchester Evening News)
What we don't know
One major question that remains is why Slater decided to walk such a long distance back to his friend's holiday apartment.
Speaking to MailOnline, Williams-Thomas said he'd interviewed Qassim, 31, who claimed to have driven Slater to his Airbnb in Masca.
The TV sleuth, who conducted his own probe alongside the official police investigation, says Qassim offered to drive Slater back later in the morning after he'd had some sleep, but that the teenager said: "Nah, I need some scran, I'm hungry."
It was reported in June that Spanish police were investigating Slater's background, to establish whether it's relevant to his disappearance.
According to the Daily Mail, police are aware of a previous conviction from 2023 when Slater was given a community sentence for violent disorder, for his involvement in an attack on a then-17-year-old with a machete. Spanish police did not confirm to Yahoo News UK whether his disappearance was linked to this offence.
Ultimately, we don’t know what happened to Slater in the hours after his phone battery went flat, or the physical condition he was in.
Read more: "It seems like there's a lot of danger": The view from remote park where Jay Slater search has gone on for weeks (Manchester Evening News)
It is also not known what condition the teenager was in when he went missing. Slater's mother was quoted by MailOnline as saying: "He'd been at a three-day festival so he would have consumed a fair bit of alcohol but Jay was Snapchatting with friends before he went missing and seemed very compos mentis."
