Missing teenager Jay Slater could be alive after fleeing Tenerife on a yacht, according to an explosive new theory.
It has been almost a month since the 19-year-old, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished in a remote part of the Spanish island while on holiday with friends. Jay had left a rave party in a car with two Britons and spent the night in an Airbnb in the “treacherous” village of Masca, before disappearing on the morning of Monday 17 June.
At the time, Jay was trying to reach the tourist town of Los Christianos, where he was staying with his friends Lucy and Brad. The teenager decided to travel on foot after missing a bus, a journey that would have taken him 11 hours. Now, online sleuths claim he may have boarded a yacht to “escape”, after learning he had stolen a Rolex just hours before he disappeared.
Detective Constable Mark Williams-Thomas, who travelled to Tenerife to help with the search, revealed that the teenager had posted a video on Snapchat in which he boasted about stealing a £12,000 Rolex. This claim led online sleuths to speculate that Jay made his way to the nearby Los Gigantes cliffs via a nearby jetty. There, he may have jumped into a waiting boat and left the island, suggesting that the teenager may be safe elsewhere.
Interestingly, a 4.2-metre yacht named Maruba was reportedly seen sailing near Masca Beach at the time of Jay’s disappearance. Shortly afterwards, the yacht’s signal no longer appeared on electronic charts. It has been speculated that this may have been because the captain had turned off the transponder.
The area is home to numerous coves and beaches where a boat could have made its way to pick Jay up. This comes after an expert suggested Jay’s phone may have been thrown into the hills, which could explain why it made its final signal in a dangerous and unnavigable area.
After speaking to a former British Army officer working in the field, journalist Nick Pisa said GPS tracking of the mobile phone could only be possible “if the phone was thrown” in the field. He told GB News: “We’re obviously not kept informed, but [the former officer] He told me he thought the origin of the ping was rather surprising because the path was really steep and covered in brush and cactus.
“He said that to get there you would need a machete. Or he suggested that someone had thrown the phone into that growth.”
