Jay Slater vanished after partying with his friends in Tenerife. Weeks later, he was found dead with several questions left unanswered. Now, an inquest has revealed what happened to the teen
British teenager Jay Slater sent shockwaves across the globe when he disappeared during a trip to Tenerife. Four weeks after a strenuous search, his semi-decomposed body was finally found, with police and medics left to uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death.
Almost one year after he went missing, the inquest into his death began at Preston Crown Court. The apprentice bricklayer, from Lancashire, had vanished after partying at the three-day NRG musical festival in June 2024. Despite major rescue operations, it took 29 days to find the missing 19-year-old.
By that time, “there were extensive changes” to his body due to decomposition. Office pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd provided some insight into his injuries at the inquest and said: “The pattern of injuries is entirely consistent with a heavy fall from height”.
Dr Shepherd explained that even if the teen had been rushed to a specialist neurosurgical unit, “the injury is so severe that death was either instantaneous or extremely quick.”
Jay Slater cause of death revealed as Brit teen had cocktail of drugs in system
Shocking details from the inquest emerged from toxicologist Dr Stephanie Martin, who revealed that a mixture of drugs was present in Jay’s body. In his system, at the time of his death, was ecstasy and a cocaine metabolite, which is present when the cocaine is taken at the same time as alcohol.
According to the doctor, the evidence indicated that ecstasy had been used within “a day or so” before his death. However, “ketamine had been used over a much longer period”. The Spanish authorities also carried out their own toxicology tests on Jay’s body. Dr Martin said: “The only difference between our results and their results is that they found ketamine and its metabolites.”
Following the inquest update, we’ve taken a look back at the timeline leading up to Jay’s tragic death.
Final moments
The Spanish police searched within the depths of the unforgiving terrain of Parque Rural de Teno nature reserve, close to where the 19-year-old’s phone last pinged.
The apprentice bricklayer had partied at the festival before extending his night out with two British men. In the early hours of June 17, he headed to their Airbnb in the remote village of Masca. The men were cleared in the police investigation.
Shortly before 9am on that fateful Monday, he had left the holiday rental and set out to walk back to his accommodation in the south of the island, believed to be an 11-hour trek after missing the local bus. He warned his friends, who he had been staying with, that he was thirsty and had no clue where he was, shortly before his phone died.
On Monday, July 15, Spanish police confirmed that a young man’s body had been discovered in a ravine near a phone mast, along with Jay’s clothes and possessions.
A preliminary autopsy found that Jay likely died following a catastrophic fall, with the pathologist finding that he’d suffered several broken bones. In a statement issued through charity LBT Global, Jay’s mother Debbie Duncan said: “I just can’t believe this could happen to my beautiful boy. Our hearts are broken.”
Former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who assisted with the search, explained how easy it would have been to fall in such ‘dangerous terrain’. The sleuth, who previously worked on the case of Nicola Bulley, previously told the Mirror: “The terrain is rough and hazardous and having now seen the video of the search team on Monday morning and that the helicopter was in the same area on Sunday afternoon where the body was recovered, it is clear to see how treacherous and dangerous it is – a slip or loss of footing would prove fatal.”
Last phone call
The insight came after Jay’s best friend, Brad Hargreaves, previously revealed details of their final phone call during Jay’s fatal walk. The teen, also from Lancashire, said he believed Jay would have avoided going down the road he had mentioned during their phone call, as he speculated the teen would have taken a safer path.
Brad revealed that he could hear Jay’s feet slide on the rocks, signalling to him his friend had “went off the road.. That’s how I knew he went off the road because, you know when you walk on gravel, or whatever it is, you can… you know what I mean, stones.”
Brad explained: “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. If he was thinking like me, he would have gone back up and started walking on the path again… He wouldn’t have gone all that way down there.”
When probed into whether he was concerned at this point, Brad replied: “Not at the time because we were both laughing and he said, ‘Look where I am’ and I was like, ‘I’ve just come out of a festival’ and he didn’t seem concerned on the phone until we knew how far away he was. I said, ‘Put your location on and he said ‘a 15 minute drive or a 14 hour walk, I don’t know if it’s accurate or not’ and I said, ‘If it’s only a 15 minute drive, get a taxi’.”
