Volunteers who have joined the desperate hunt for Jay Slater in Tenerife have vowed not to give up looking for the missing British teenager as Spanish police today officially ended their search after almost two weeks.
Apprentice bricklayer Jay, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, has not been seen since he went back to an Airbnb near the remote village of Masca with two men following a night out on the infamous Veronicas strip in Playa de las Americas.
He was last seen near the rugged Rural de Teno Park on the morning of June 17 and a huge search involving dogs, drones and a helicopter has failed to find any trace.
On Saturday, police launched one final push and appealed for an army of volunteers to help but just six people turned up to join 24 mountain rescue and fire teams in the Masca valley.
In a dramatic update on Sunday morning, a spokesperson for Tenerife police said: ‘The search is now over but the investigation remains open.’ They refused to elaborate on whether it was now a criminal investigation.
Although Spanish authorities claim the case has been clouded by ‘inaccurate’ conspiracy theories on social media, Jay’s desperate family have called in the help of one social media sleuth – Paul Arnott.
The TikTok climber, who has spent more than a week in Tenerife, posted on his Down The Rapids account today: ‘I’m possibly going to move the search over to another area, either tomorrow (Monday) or this evening (Sunday) but I will tell you about that later.’
It comes as family friend Rachel Hargreaves, the mother of Jay’s pal Brad, told The Sun: ‘Nothing has changed. We will continue to search for him.’
Jay’s mother, Debbie Duncan, told The Telegraph earlier this week: ‘[I] can’t thank Paul Arnott enough, also Callum Rahim [another TikTok creator] and his friends for working alongside with the search and rescue teams.
‘Myself, well you know the state of my mental health and my paranoia, you saw it first hand. As a family, we are in a living nightmare.’
Mr Arnott – who is normally based in Bedfordshire – spent £400 on a flight to Tenerife from the Scottish Highlands last Saturday to join the search. He has posted dozens of videos to his 290,000 followers, racking up millions of views, comments and likes.
When asked by earlier this week how long he was planning to stay, he said: ‘It’s been exhausting and it’s been really hard work but I’m not giving up until we find Jay.’
Sunday June 16: Jay and his friends, including Lucy Mae Law, party at the final day of the NRG music festival at Papagayo night club in the resort of Playa de las Americas, Tenerife.
Monday June 17:
Between 3am and 6am BST, Jay goes back to an Airbnb with two men after they leave Playa de las Americas in a car.
7.30am: Jay shares a photo on his Snapchat account, which shows him standing at the doorway of a house with the location Parque Rural de Teno.
Between 8.30am and 9am: Jay calls Lucy and says he is ‘lost in the mountains with one per cent battery and no water’ and has missed a bus back south and was attempting to walk. It would take 11 hours.
The call cuts out and the phone’s last location is a path in the rugged Rural de Teno national park, which is popular with hikers.
Grainy CCTV, released on June 24, shows a possible sighting of Jay at Santiago at around 6pm – nearly ten hours after his mobile phone last pinged in the Rural de Teno Park at around 8.50am.
The CCTV is taken close to a church, San Fernando Rey, where Jay’s mother told a man has come forward to say he saw someone matching her son’s description sitting on a bench with two men.
Tuesday June 18: Friends search the area but there is no sign of Jay and he does not return to his accommodation.
Local police and mountain rescue teams start hunting for Jay – and his mother Debbie flies to Tenerife.
Wednesday June 19 – Spanish police use drones, dogs and a helicopter but Jay is not found.
They change their search to Los Cristianos because of a possible sighting, but it is ruled out and they return to Rural de Teno.
Thursday June 20: Guardia Civil, mountain rescue, firefighters and volunteers continue to search the national park.
Friday June 21: Lancashire Police offer support but it is declined by the Spanish police.
Saturday June 22: Search teams continue scouring the national park and Debbie says: ‘We just need you home.’
Sunday June 23: Police examine outbuildings at the bottom of a ravine where his phone last pinged.
Monday June 24: learns Spanish police are investigating whether Jay’s past is relevant. Jay’s family focus on the area of Santiago de Teide – where the grainy CCTV they think is Jay was taken.
Tuesday June 25: Jay’s mother issues a heartbreaking plea for her son to come home as more friends fly out to Tenerife. TV investigator Mark Williams-Thomas is seen outside Airbnb Jay went to.
Wednesday June 26: Mr Williams-Thomas tells the two men that Jay went back with to ‘come forward with crucial information’
Thursday June 27: Jay’s mother says she is in talks to withdraw some of £36,000 from GoFundMe to help with rescue efforts and living expenses.
Friday June 28: Police in Tenerife call for an army of volunteers to help them scour the rugged terrain.
Saturday June 29: Only six volunteers show up to help with the search. Investigators also say the two men Jay went back with have ‘no relevance’ to the case.
Sunday June 30: Spanish police officially end the search for Jay Slater. They say the investigation ‘remains open’, however.
Jay, 19, was last seen at around 8am on June 17 by the owner of an Airbnb he had gone back to with two men after a rave. He had missed a bus back to his accommodation and was seen setting off on foot for what would have been an 11-hour walk.
The decision to end the search was taken at a senior level following a meeting between investigators and mountain rescue teams at the island’s HQ i Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
On Saturday one of the search teams had told : ‘Nothing was found and now the chief will make a decision whether to carry on, it’s up to the senior people to decide, there is no established cut off time.
‘But obviously we cannot carry on searching for ever so what we know will be evaluated and then the senior investigators will make that decision.’
Jay’s phone last pinged near to a look-out point where search teams gathered yesterday to begin the last day of the operation.
Friend Lucy Law said Jay had called her shortly after he was last seen to say he was thirsty and had no water and just one per cent battery on his phone. Another friend, Brad Hargreaves, said he also spoke to Jay that morning and thought he had veered off the main road and may have slid down rocks.
The Civil Guard says the ‘parallel’ investigation by police investigators which they are not sharing information on is continuing despite the suspension of the ‘visible’ mountain search in and around Masca.
After partying on the final night of the three-day NRG festival in Tenerife’s Playa de las Americas resort, Jay had gone back to an Airbnb in Masca with two men he had met on holiday. It was here that he sent two Snapchat messages from there to his friends.
Ofelia Medina Hernandez, the owner of the villa, said she saw Jay standing at a nearby bus stop at around 8am.
He asked her when the next bus was to Los Cristianos, but when he was told it wasn’t until 10am, he set off on foot.
Jay’s father, Warren Slater, yesterday said he was ‘disappointed’ after only a handful of volunteers turned out to join the hunt for his son.
Just six volunteers including Mr Arnott and a few Spanish nationals joined the search on Saturday, with temperatures pushing 23C.
‘It’s a bit disappointing that there are no British apart from Paul but I suppose to them he’s just a British lad who’s come out here and got drunk,’ Warren said.
The father added he was ‘grateful’ to those who gathered to look for his son.
‘You can see just how dangerous it is and what gets me is the trollers who are having a go at us for not searching,’ he said.
Police revealed yesterday that two mystery British men who were with Jay the night he disappeared were ‘not relevant’ to their investigation.
The development raised eyebrows among many as TV sleuth Mark Williams-Thomas, who worked on the missing people cases of Madeleine McCann and Nicola Bulley, had described the men as ‘key witnesses’ and appealed for them to come forward.
Cipriano Martin, head of the Spanish Civil Guard’s Mountain Rescue team in Tenerife, said: ‘Those men have been spoken to and they don’t have any relevance whatsoever for the case.’
However little is known about the two mystery 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.
It comes after police said they were investigating a scuffle outside Papagayo Beach Club, where Jay was seen partying on June 17.
It is believed a fight – involving an Eastern European man who reportedly had his valuable Rolex stolen – broke out after the venue had closed.
One of Jay’s friends, who had travelled to Tenerife to help in the search told detectives the alleged incident could have led to his disappearance.
Authorities were reviewing CCTV footage from the venue where the incident occurred.
Another theory which is understood to be on the table is that the valuable watch had somehow wound up in the cottage where Jay had travelled – and that he then ventured into the wilderness in an attempt to steal it.
Earlier this week, revealed new photos of Jay chatting to friends at a hotel pool party just two days before he vanished.
The investigation also took a strange twist when the mayor of Tenerife revealed that police were quizzing locals who claimed they had seen Jay ‘watching the Euros’ in a bar in Puerto de Santiago – a coastal resort on the island.
The claim followed the earlier release of a grainy CCTV image from Santiago del Teide which Jay’s family were hopeful was him, and which police were looking at.
The image shows a figure walking past a church at around 6pm the day he went missing – ten hours after his phone last pinged.
The CCTV was taken close to a church, San Fernando Rey, where Jay’s mother previously told that a man has come forward to say he saw someone matching her son’s description sitting on a bench with two men.
On Friday, Jay’s friend Brad Hargreaves told ITV’s This Morning he had been on a video call with him before his disappearance when he heard him go off the road.
He said: ‘He was on the phone walking down a road and he’d gone over a little bit – not a big drop – but a tiny little drop and he was going down, and he said ‘I’ll ring ya back, I’ll ring ya back’ because I think someone else was ringing him.’
He confirmed he could see his friend’s feet ‘sliding’ down the hill and could hear he was walking on what sounded like rocks or stones.
But, Mr Hargreaves said he and his friend were both laughing at that point.
He added: ‘He didn’t seem concerned on the phone until we knew how far away he was.’
He told the programme he still had hope for Jay and was ‘praying’ for him to come home.
Earlier this week, his mother Debbie Duncan, who travelled to the island following his disappearance, said money raised online would be used to support mountain rescue teams, and to cover her own accommodation and food costs.
Donations flooded in after GoFundMe appeal ‘Get Jay Slater home’ was set up by Lucy Law which has raised £43,000 as of Sunday.
In an update on Thursday, Ms Duncan said: ‘We are currently working with GoFundMe to withdraw part of the funds, which are being safely held.
‘I wanted to share that these funds will be used to support the mountain rescue teams who are tirelessly searching for Jay.
‘Additionally, since our stay in Tenerife needs to be extended, we will also use the funds to cover accommodation and food expenses.’
Ms Duncan has described her son’s disappearance and the wait for news as a ‘living nightmare’.