The 19-year-old was last heard from on June 17, after walking from a northern part of the Spanish island to his holiday accommodation in the south – a journey of around 11 hours.
Tuesday 16 July 2024 13:42, United Kingdom
The body found by rescuers in Tenerife is that of British teenager Jay Slater, a court spokesman said.
A Tenerife court spokesman said fingerprints examined during an autopsy confirmed the body was that of the British teenager.
The multiple injuries sustained are consistent with a fall from a cliff, the spokesman added.
Spanish police said in a Monday statement that the Civil Guard’s mountain rescue group had located the “lifeless body of a young man in the Masca region after 29 days of constant searching.”
LBT Global – a charity that supports families of missing people and works with the Slater family – said the body was found with the 19-year-old’s belongings and clothes and was likely to be close to the last known location of his mobile phone.
On Tuesday, rescue teams kept looking the remote area where the goods were found.
They said they were continuing their work to ensure that nothing is missing in the thick undergrowth that covers the area near the village of Masca.
One local questioned how Mr Slater had managed to reach such a location, telling Sky News: “The place where they found him shows he had gone quite far down the ravine.”
While another said the place is “extremely difficult” to walk around.
The teenager was last heard from on the morning of June 17, after setting off on foot from a northern area of the island to return to his holiday accommodation in the south – a journey of about 11 hours.
On June 17 at 8:30 a.m., he called his friend Lucy Law to tell her that he had missed a bus, his phone battery was at 1% and he had cut his leg on a cactus.
He had flown to the Spanish island with friends four days earlier to attend a music festival at the Papagayo nightclub in the southern resort of Playa de las Americas.
Learn more:
Jay Slater’s friend Lucy Law makes emotional statement
‘You should be ashamed’: Jay Slater’s bands anger
Jay Slater’s Disappearance Timeline
The day before his body was found, Mr Slater’s mother, Debbie Duncan, described her son as a “loving son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend to so many”.
She also took aim at what she called “very distressing” Online Comments and Conspiracy Theories which have spiraled out of control since the teenager’s disappearance.
