It’s been three weeks since British teenager Jay Slater, 19, went missing in Tenerife after his phone battery died in the mountainous Rural de Teno area near Masca
The mystery of Jay Slater’s disappearance has deepened following a new revelation about his phone.
Apprentice bricklayer Jay, 19, seemingly vanished into thin air on June 17 in the remote Rural de Teno area of Tenerife while holidaying for a three-day music festival with friends. The teen left his pals to travel to a quiet Airbnb with two other British partygoers in the early hours of the Monday and attempted to walk back to his accommodation that morning.
Jay began the treacherous 11-hour trek on foot and called his close friend, Lucy Mae Law, to tell her that his phone battery was about to die, he was thirsty and had cut his leg on a cactus. His phone last ‘pinged’ somewhere in the mountainous region near the village of Masca, where Spanish police focused their search before officially calling it off on June 30.
Jay’s loved ones have continued to search the island with the aid of a former British police detective, Mark Williams-Thomas, 54, who has probed a string of high-profile missing persons cases. The former Met Police officer shared an update on social media yesterday, where he revealed he had spoken with Ayub Qassim, 31, one of the men who Jay went back to the villa with.
In his conversation with Mr Qassim, Mark said he was told Jay asked him for a phone charger and then took one from the other Brit’s room while he was sleeping. But oddly, just hours later, Jay’s phone was on one percent battery as he attempted to walk back to his accommodation on the south of the island. It died around 8.30am on Monday, June 17.
In a video shared on X, Mark explained: “On arrival at the rental, [Qassim’s] friend opened the door, went to the left and went straight to sleep. Jay walked in behind, followed by [Qassim]. They went upstairs and Qassim told Jay, ‘The sofa’s for you there’, handed him a towel, a blanket and told him to have a shower whenever he wanted.”
The TV detective added: “Jay also asked for a cigarette and Ayub said I’ve got some Camel cigarettes and put one on the side. Jay then asked for a charger, then went into Qassim’s friend’s room, while he was sleeping and took the charger.”
Qassim then reportedly went to sleep and was awoken by the sound of the door buzzing. He was asked to move his car and spotted Jay talking to a woman outside. Qassim offered Jay a lift into town when he had woken up properly, but Jay said he needed “some scran” and he could get the bus. Jay walked away and Qassim went back to sleep.
Qassim had rented the Airbnb, Casa Abuela Tina, situated near the secluded village of Masca for a modest £40 per night, using the name Ayub Abdul. On June 17, Jay stayed at the cottage. Qassim, alongside an unnamed companion, had been in contact with Spanish authorities and even prolonged his stay by a day to aid in the investigation into Jay’s disappearance.
In an interview the day after Jay went missing, his friend Lucy said: “He rang me at about 8 o’clock morning saying his phone was on one percent. He said ‘I don’t know where I am, I need a drink and my phone is about to die’.” The young woman managed to locate the Airbnb on the day of his vanishing, after using markers in Jay’s last Snapchat image.
She approached the two men who were still inside the property. She said: “We managed to find the house. I knocked on the door and there were two people there.” They said Jay had gone out for a cigarette before going back in and saying he wanted to go home. “They told me he’d spoken to the next-door neighbours and they’d told him there was a bus every 10 minutes back down to Los Cristianos,” said Lucy.
