A British teen who was missing for nearly a month on the island of Tenerife likely died from injuries suffered in a fall in rocky terrain, a Spanish court has declared, the day after his body was found.
Jay Slater, 19, was identified through fingerprints after his remains were discovered in a rugged area near his last known location, the High Court of Justice said on Tuesday (early Wednesday AEST).
Spanish authorities, family members, friends and volunteers spent weeks searching for Slater after he apparently got lost trying to walk from one corner of the Canary island to another.
“I just can’t believe this could happen to my beautiful boy,” his mother, Debbie Duncan, said.
The journey from Masca, a village in the north-west, to where he had been staying in Los Cristianos in the south, would have taken about 11 hours on foot.
Slater frantically called a friend, Lucy Law, that morning and said he was “lost in the mountains, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, he desperately needed a drink and his phone was on 1 per cent”, she said.
It was near the last known location of his mobile phone, said LBT Global, a charity that supported Slater’s family.
Slater, an apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle in north-west England, had attended a music festival the day before his disappearance.
Law said on Instagram that Slater was “always the happiest and most smiley person in the room” and would be missed “more than you know”.
“I’m sure you’ll ‘have your dancing shoes polished and ready’ waiting for us all,” Law wrote.
“We all love you buddy. Fly high.”
