More than a year after Jay Slater vanished following a night out in Tenerife, an inquest is set to resume into the circumstances of his death. The 19-year-old's body was found almost a month after he disappeared, and an earlier inquest raised more questions than it answered.
Investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas has examined the case in a new podcast, speaking to family, friends and witnesses. Jay had attended the NRG music festival at Papagayo nightclub in Playa de las Americas on 16 June 2024, before going to an Airbnb apartment in the early hours – the last place he was seen alive.
Williams-Thomas spoke to Ayub Qassim, who leased the Airbnb. Qassim said Jay told him he was leaving because a woman had said a bus came every ten minutes. Qassim warned him there was no such bus and offered to give him a lift later, but Jay insisted he had to go to Los Cristianos, saying “I need to scram, I need to chip out”. Qassim last saw him walking off down the steps.
However, Williams-Thomas revealed that was not the final sighting. A woman who managed the property said she directed Jay to a bus stop and then saw him walk alone up the hillside. She told the investigator that two black men were inside asleep at the time, and she did not see Jay again. The former detective said Jay was “buzzing” from alcohol and drugs and wanted to continue partying, which explained why he went to the Airbnb. A post-mortem found alcohol and drugs in his system before his fall into a ravine.
Jay sent a cryptic text at 2.35am saying “they've got a marker on me”, and when a friend replied advising him to go home, Jay responded sarcastically. Williams-Thomas said Jay was heavily under the influence and likely experiencing paranoia. He concluded that his investigation into the Airbnb stay “strongly rules out third party involvement” from that time.
Lucy Law was the first to raise the alarm when Jay went missing. The inquest is expected to resume, but seven key questions remain unresolved, including those surrounding a Rolex and the whereabouts of friends mentioned in the podcast.
