It has been two years since Jay Slater died in Tenerife after vanishing during his first holiday abroad with friends. The 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer, from Lancashire, woke up in an Airbnb after a night out before embarking on an 11-hour trek back to his own accommodation when he missed the bus.
Shortly before his phone battery died, he told friends who he had been staying with that he was thirsty and had no idea where he was. Spanish police searched the Parque Rural de Teno nature reserve for four weeks as part of huge efforts to find Jay once he was reported missing. The location was close to where Jay's phone last pinged.
His mother Debbie Duncan, father Warren Slater, and older brother Zak helped in the desperate bid to find Jay. After mountain rescue teams combed through dense vegetation and steep ravines in scorching temperatures, Spanish police confirmed a body had been discovered in a ravine near a phone mast, along with Jay's clothes and possessions. Fingerprints later confirmed it was Jay as the body was 'very deteriorated'.
An inquest found that Jay suffered a 'heavy fall from height' and the 'devastating' effects would have been immediate. Toxicology tests indicated that Jay had taken cocaine, MDMA, and alcohol before his death. Spanish authorities also conducted their own toxicology analysis, finding that he had also used ketamine shortly before his death and over a longer period.
Former Detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who worked with Jay's family during his disappearance, has now spoken of Jay's harrowing final journey. He said: "Jay had no experience or knowledge of how rough that terrain was going to be. He probably started to realise as he set off. But don't forget he had been strongly under the influence of both drugs and alcohol. And so his decision-making process was impaired. That terrain there is lethal as we found out. One minute you're on a steady piece of ground, the next there's a plunging cliff."
Although Jay had no idea, the exact area he was walking is so deadly 'even professionals' deem it a dangerous place, Mark said. He went on: "The only chance of making it home was to follow the road. That was his only chance for making it home. And even that was incredibly dangerous and very lengthy because the road there is treacherous in itself, and this is a proper road. There's some bends around there, which are lethal. As soon as you go off the road you're in a treacherous area. He had no phone, he had no fluids with him, and he was obviously under the influence of both drink and drugs, and he was tired. All of that is a recipe for disaster."
Speaking about the gruelling terrain, Mark said: "Some of those areas are only approachable with people with considerable experience in mountaineering. They would require proper kit, including ropes." In his view, these are not routes anyone should attempt solo. With the ping from the phone mast the only clue, a huge search was launched. But the rugged landscape was by no means easy to comb through. Helicopters, drones, huge teams of volunteers, and local authorities worked together, with some having to hack through thick vegetation with machetes.
Mark said: "The experts up there were very coordinated. They were doing a strategical search up there; they obviously were working from his last point of where his signal went down. But so many of these people were working on the basis that hopefully he's made it through, so checking outbuildings, checking areas where potentially he could be sheltering. It was boiling hot. In order to find him as they did, they had to themselves negotiate really dangerous cliff edges to be able to get down to him."
Eventually Jay's body was discovered in the Juan Lopez Ravine, an area even experienced hikers would avoid, with almost vertical inclines. He suffered catastrophic head injuries and likely died almost instantly from a fall. His death was ruled to be accidental.
