Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / Hell and Gone Murder Line: Jay Slater

Transcript

Hell and Gone Murder Line: Jay Slater · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans. On Sunday, June seventeenth, twenty twenty four,
0:15
Speaker 1: Jay Slater, a nineteen year old bricklayers apprentice who lived
0:19
Speaker 1: in Lancashire, England, was on his first ever foreign holiday
0:23
Speaker 1: and he seemed to be having a blast. He had
0:26
Speaker 1: gone to the island of Tenerife in Spain with a
0:28
Speaker 1: female friend named Lucy and another guy named Brad. That night,
0:32
Speaker 1: he and Lucy went out to a music festival called
0:35
Speaker 1: NRG New Rave Generation. It was held at Papagayo Beach
0:39
Speaker 1: Club in an area called Veronica's Strip. It's an area
0:43
Speaker 1: that has a ton of nightclubs and neon signs. It's
0:47
Speaker 1: very popular with British tourists. According to the information that
0:50
Speaker 1: Lucy posted later on a go fund meet, they had
0:53
Speaker 1: a great time that night. Jay had just finished his
0:56
Speaker 1: course at technical school back in the UK. He was
0:59
Speaker 1: getting ready to take his exams when he got home,
1:01
Speaker 1: so they were blowing off some steam. But Lucy said
1:04
Speaker 1: she was tired from the weekend, so she went home early.
1:07
Speaker 1: That night. Jay stayed on at the club. He posted
1:11
Speaker 1: photos and snapchats from there. He appeared to be having
1:14
Speaker 1: a great time. At eight thirty five, PM, he posted
1:18
Speaker 1: a snap of himself hanging out with friends, looking happy
1:22
Speaker 1: and chilled and dancing. More camera footage has come out
1:25
Speaker 1: from inside the club. You can see him laughing and
1:28
Speaker 1: having a great time. Eventually he made his way outside
1:32
Speaker 1: the club, which closed at three am. After that, he
1:36
Speaker 1: was sitting on a wall. At around four am he
1:40
Speaker 1: started chatting to two other British men. Somehow they made
1:44
Speaker 1: a plan to go on to those two guys Airbnb.
1:48
Speaker 1: They left that club sometime after four am. He got
1:53
Speaker 1: into a car with these two strangers and went back
1:55
Speaker 1: to their airbnb, which was in a remote area about
1:58
Speaker 1: an hour away from where Jay was staying in the
2:00
Speaker 1: touristy resort area. The airbnb was near a small town
2:05
Speaker 1: called Mascot. The next morning, Lucy got one last frantic
2:10
Speaker 1: call from Jay a little after eight am, saying he
2:13
Speaker 1: was lost, didn't know where he was, and that he
2:16
Speaker 1: was panicked. That was the last time that anyone ever
2:23
Speaker 1: heard from Jay Slater, because after that he disappeared. J Slater,
2:27
Speaker 1: this healthy young man who had his entire life ahead
2:31
Speaker 1: of him, was just gone, and what happened to him
2:35
Speaker 1: has become a huge story in the UK and now
2:38
Speaker 1: throughout the world. What did happen to him? Was he
2:42
Speaker 1: kidnapped and murdered like a lot of people believe. Did
2:46
Speaker 1: he wander off into the wilderness or did someone else
2:50
Speaker 1: pull up alongside him on that narrow strip of road,
2:52
Speaker 1: coax him into their car and drive off somewhere. This
2:56
Speaker 1: case is wild. It is exposed the seedy underside of
3:00
Speaker 1: this beautiful island and the criminal underworld that are operating there.
3:04
Speaker 1: This case has taken over British news. Everyone from police
3:08
Speaker 1: detectives to psychics and TikTok stars have descended on this
3:12
Speaker 1: Spanish island in the Canaries. They're all trying to find
3:15
Speaker 1: a young man who is partying and vanished about a
3:18
Speaker 1: trace right in the middle of an island full of tourists.
3:22
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. If
4:15
Speaker 1: you listen to this podcast, you know I don't normally
4:18
Speaker 1: cover cases that are ongoing unless there's a good reason,
4:21
Speaker 1: like a missing person's case that isn't getting attention, not
4:25
Speaker 1: like this case, which actually is all over the news.
4:28
Speaker 1: I prefer cold cases for several reasons. First of all,
4:31
Speaker 1: I don't want to be one of those reporters that
4:33
Speaker 1: stands on people's lawns right after tragedy and ask for
4:37
Speaker 1: sound bites from grieving families. And even though we are
4:41
Speaker 1: sometimes critical of the police when they are investigating a case,
4:46
Speaker 1: I really don't want to get in the police's way.
4:48
Speaker 1: But this case, the Jay Slater case, is fascinating. It's
4:52
Speaker 1: fascinating for a couple of reasons. In my opinion, it's
4:56
Speaker 1: a good lesson in what to do when a loved
4:58
Speaker 1: one goes missing and what not to do because this
5:02
Speaker 1: case has brought out some of the darkest, worse sides
5:06
Speaker 1: of true crime journalism and of what they call black
5:10
Speaker 1: tourism or murder tourism. A little background here. I used
5:17
Speaker 1: to live in London. I work for a British newspaper
5:19
Speaker 1: for several years for people who don't know that, and
5:22
Speaker 1: I am an American citizen, but I also have a
5:24
Speaker 1: British passport, so really London is like my second home.
5:29
Speaker 1: I come here every summer. And when I came to
5:31
Speaker 1: London this week, literally the entire country was talking about
5:35
Speaker 1: this Jay Slater case. It reminded me a little bit
5:38
Speaker 1: of the Natalie Halloway case in the US back in
5:40
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. The difference is that since the
5:44
Speaker 1: Natalie Hallway case, we have social media, so in addition
5:48
Speaker 1: to this nationwide press coverage, we have all these amateur
5:52
Speaker 1: detectives that have gone into a frenzy over this case.
5:56
Speaker 1: As we said before, Jay's friend Lucy started to worry
5:59
Speaker 1: the next morning when he didn't come back to the
6:00
Speaker 1: resort where they were staying. This was a big resort
6:03
Speaker 1: called Plia dea LA's America. It was about a forty
6:07
Speaker 1: minute drive from their resort to the area where Jay
6:10
Speaker 1: went with the two strangers. That was in a more
6:13
Speaker 1: rural area in the north of the island, near a
6:16
Speaker 1: park called Rural de Teno Park. This is a long
6:20
Speaker 1: way from the Lively Beach resort area where they'd been
6:23
Speaker 1: hanging around the night before. This park is in an
6:26
Speaker 1: area that is remote popular with hikers. At around seven
6:31
Speaker 1: thirty am the next morning, Jay had posted a snap
6:35
Speaker 1: of a hand. We haven't seen this snap, but presumably
6:38
Speaker 1: it was his hand holding a cigarette on the front
6:41
Speaker 1: steps of that airbnb. We know it's that airbnb because
6:45
Speaker 1: Lucy said you could see the tile pattern on the steps.
6:49
Speaker 1: He called Lucy shortly after eight am. Now, some reports
6:52
Speaker 1: at eight fifteen, but later it seemed like the correct
6:56
Speaker 1: time was eight fifty am. He called her and sounded panics.
7:00
Speaker 1: She said. He told her his phone was dying, he
7:03
Speaker 1: only had one percent battery, he was thirsty, and he
7:06
Speaker 1: did not know where he was. She wrote on the
7:09
Speaker 1: go fundme page, quote, I woke up to a phone
7:11
Speaker 1: call off Jay at eight thirty am, saying he was
7:14
Speaker 1: lost in the mountains. He wasn't aware of his surroundings,
7:17
Speaker 1: he desperately needed a drink, and his phone was on
7:19
Speaker 1: one percent. He had met two people on Sunday night
7:23
Speaker 1: and left with them to go to their apartment. Their
7:25
Speaker 1: apartment was miles away from civilization and in a very
7:29
Speaker 1: secluded location. End quote. Now, after this went down, a
7:33
Speaker 1: lot of people asked did Lucy or Jay know these
7:37
Speaker 1: guys before the night he vanished? The post on GoFundMe
7:41
Speaker 1: that was made by Lucy, in my opinion, made it
7:44
Speaker 1: sound like the two guys from the airbnb were complete strangers.
7:48
Speaker 1: Later someone else would come forward to question that, but
7:51
Speaker 1: we'll get back to that later. So, after Jay said
7:56
Speaker 1: he was in trouble and lost, Lucy immediately went out
7:59
Speaker 1: looking for him. Apparently that snap that Jay sent had
8:03
Speaker 1: his location. That's how Lucy was able to find that
8:07
Speaker 1: house so quickly. It's also the only house in that
8:10
Speaker 1: area in the mountains. It's along a winding strip of roads,
8:15
Speaker 1: surrounded by rural cliffs and very difficult terrain. She said
8:20
Speaker 1: that she knocked on the door and that there were
8:22
Speaker 1: two people there, presumably the two men whose airbnb it was.
8:26
Speaker 1: According to Lucy, that morning, Jay had gone out for
8:29
Speaker 1: a smoke, come back for a short time, and then
8:32
Speaker 1: said he wanted to go home. After that, they said
8:35
Speaker 1: he left now. According to media reports, Lucy said that
8:40
Speaker 1: she believed that Jay may have been kidnapped, but after
8:44
Speaker 1: he left the residence, he did talk to Lucy at
8:46
Speaker 1: eight fifty and there was someone else in that remote
8:50
Speaker 1: wilderness who saw Jay after he left the airbnb, so
8:55
Speaker 1: someone did see him after he left the airbnb. The
8:59
Speaker 1: last person to see Jay alive that we know about
9:02
Speaker 1: was a woman, Ophelia Medina Hernandez. This was a neighbor
9:09
Speaker 1: the person who owned the airbnb. She was interviewed by
9:13
Speaker 1: British media and by the police. She said that when
9:16
Speaker 1: she saw Jay that morning, right after he left the airbnb,
9:20
Speaker 1: he was asking her about the bus. What time the
9:22
Speaker 1: bus came, because there was a bus stop right in
9:25
Speaker 1: front of the house. Apparently he was trying to get
9:28
Speaker 1: a bus back down the hill, back in the direction
9:30
Speaker 1: of Los Cristianos, which would have been the direction of
9:33
Speaker 1: the resort where he was staying. You can see that
9:36
Speaker 1: bus stop from the house. The woman said she told
9:39
Speaker 1: him the bus was at ten am. She didn't really
9:42
Speaker 1: speak English, so she held up ten fingers to signal
9:45
Speaker 1: that she meant ten. So if that bus came at
9:49
Speaker 1: ten o'clock, he would have had over an hour to
9:51
Speaker 1: wait at that bus stop. The woman said later that
9:55
Speaker 1: she saw Jay one more time. She said she passed
9:58
Speaker 1: by him in her car about fifteen minutes later after
10:01
Speaker 1: they had that conversation, But she said something strange. She said,
10:04
Speaker 1: he was walked looking uphill, so in the opposite direction
10:08
Speaker 1: from town. She said, quote, he was alone, he was
10:11
Speaker 1: walking normally, though he was walking fast end quote. So
10:15
Speaker 1: what made him lead the bus stop and why was
10:18
Speaker 1: he walking uphill toward the middle of nowhere instead of
10:22
Speaker 1: downhill toward town. Jay's phone died just after eight p
10:30
Speaker 1: fifty am. The last ping was from an area near
10:33
Speaker 1: a hiking trail uphill from the airbnb. Lucy reported Jay
10:38
Speaker 1: missing to police and started looking for him. She met
10:42
Speaker 1: someone who gave her a ride. They drove around the
10:44
Speaker 1: mountains all day. She said she thought she would see
10:46
Speaker 1: Jay walking along the road, but he was just gone.
10:50
Speaker 1: Authorities in Spain contacted Jay's mother, fifty five year old
10:53
Speaker 1: Debbie Duncan, and his father Warren back in the UK.
10:57
Speaker 1: Debbie and Warren and Jay's brother immediately flew over to Spain.
11:01
Speaker 1: Pretty soon there was a massive search being done the police, firefighters, volunteers,
11:08
Speaker 1: people with canine dogs, drones and helicopters. Tenerief is the
11:14
Speaker 1: largest of the Canary Islands. There are seven of them
11:17
Speaker 1: and they are geographically located near North Africa. Because they
11:21
Speaker 1: are just a short flight from the UK a little
11:23
Speaker 1: over four hours. The Canary Islands are very popular tourist
11:27
Speaker 1: destinations for British people. A lot of people come to
11:31
Speaker 1: these islands to party and soak up the sun. There
11:35
Speaker 1: is a huge bar culture, drinking, dancing and of course
11:39
Speaker 1: some drug use that comes along with going out and partying,
11:42
Speaker 1: and a lot of young people being in a rave.
11:45
Speaker 1: Early in the investigation, Lucy was kind of criticizing the
11:49
Speaker 1: Spanish police she seemed to be a mysterious figure herself
11:52
Speaker 1: when she did interviews, she had her identity hidden. She
11:56
Speaker 1: was just kind of this dark silhouette. Basically, she said
11:59
Speaker 1: the local authorities in Spain had fobbed her off. She
12:03
Speaker 1: said she believed they were not taking Jay's disapp hearent seriously.
12:07
Speaker 1: She also asked, by the way, why the Spanish police
12:09
Speaker 1: did not have a translator after three days, which is
12:13
Speaker 1: reasonable because it's not like English to Spanish translators are
12:15
Speaker 1: hard to find. But also, unfortunately, the Spanish media seemed
12:19
Speaker 1: to kind of have an issue with this and seemed to,
12:22
Speaker 1: at least at first, kind of in my opinion, paint
12:25
Speaker 1: her as this demanding foreigner. Unfortunately, that happens in a
12:28
Speaker 1: lot of these cases. Pretty soon a lot of online
12:32
Speaker 1: commenters were speculating about Lucy. A lot of people were asking,
12:36
Speaker 1: how was this young woman able to take so many
12:38
Speaker 1: foreign holidays? How did she pay for them? Was she
12:42
Speaker 1: some kind of drug mule? By the way, there's absolutely
12:44
Speaker 1: zero evidence for any of this, and I can totally
12:47
Speaker 1: understand why Lucy would have wanted to hide her identity
12:50
Speaker 1: exactly for this reason. Because people started to get very
12:54
Speaker 1: involved in this investigation, they were following it on social media.
12:58
Speaker 1: Lucy did something else. She set up a GoFundMe campaign, and,
13:02
Speaker 1: as we know from listening to True Crime podcast, since
13:06
Speaker 1: every decision that family members or friends make early an investigation,
13:11
Speaker 1: unfortunately can be criticized, this is one of the biggest
13:13
Speaker 1: areas for criticism. What happens with these gofundmes? Where did
13:18
Speaker 1: the money go? Why did the friends started and not
13:20
Speaker 1: the mom. This prompted Jay's mother, Debbie, to post an update.
13:25
Speaker 1: She said they would be using the funds for travel
13:28
Speaker 1: and lodging and to support the Spanish authorities. As of
13:31
Speaker 1: June twenty seventh, by the way, the go fundme had
13:34
Speaker 1: received around forty thousand pounds a little over fifty thousand dollars.
13:39
Speaker 1: So the police were wondering how in the world did
13:42
Speaker 1: this young man just disappear. They talked to the two
13:49
Speaker 1: men whom Jay had gone home with, and it seemed
13:52
Speaker 1: like they were mystified too. Police said the two men
13:55
Speaker 1: answered their questions, they cooperated, and they voluntarily stayed on
13:59
Speaker 1: the island for extra day. They said that the Spanish
14:02
Speaker 1: police had their names, addresses and all their personal dey
14:05
Speaker 1: tales before those two men flew back to the UK. Now,
14:09
Speaker 1: a lot of online commenters made statements like how could
14:12
Speaker 1: Jay's friends leave him alone? But honestly, I find that
14:17
Speaker 1: probably the easiest part of the story to believe, because
14:20
Speaker 1: we see this over and over. We see that there's
14:23
Speaker 1: a lot of press about young women being preyed on
14:26
Speaker 1: whether they're at home or when they're on vacation, but
14:30
Speaker 1: young men are generally less careful about these things. There's
14:33
Speaker 1: much less awareness about the danger that a young man
14:37
Speaker 1: can feel when he's on his own. And people do
14:40
Speaker 1: disappear in Tenerief, even though the crime rate on the
14:43
Speaker 1: island is pretty low. Sometimes they wander off into the
14:47
Speaker 1: rough terrain and fall through ravines or get trapped there.
14:51
Speaker 1: But then a lot of people speculated maybe Jay got
14:54
Speaker 1: involved in some kind of drug trade. There is a
14:57
Speaker 1: drug trade, an underground criminal element on Tenerief. It's been
15:01
Speaker 1: described as an island where the Italian mob is very active.
15:05
Speaker 1: It's all been described as one of the islands of
15:07
Speaker 1: what they call geostrategic importance when it comes to international
15:11
Speaker 1: drug trafficking. Because the case made national and then international news,
15:17
Speaker 1: there were sightings of Jay everywhere, all of them to
15:21
Speaker 1: this date have been unbeverified. The rumors continued to fly.
15:26
Speaker 1: Some people said Jay lost a bag full of drugs
15:29
Speaker 1: and he was being held hostage until the money was paid.
15:32
Speaker 1: There were a lot of crazy conspiracy theories flying around,
15:36
Speaker 1: each one a little more unbelievable than the next, and
15:38
Speaker 1: a lot of them entered around this go fundme money
15:42
Speaker 1: that somehow Jay's family or friends had set up this
15:46
Speaker 1: GoFundMe to repay a drug debt. This was all some
15:49
Speaker 1: elaborate scheme, which really should have seemed totally ridiculous from
15:53
Speaker 1: the beginning, but people were continuing to repeat stuff like this.
15:57
Speaker 1: Then on Saturday, Jane twenty second, there was a break
16:00
Speaker 1: in the case. There was a reported sighting of Jay
16:03
Speaker 1: in Santiago del tier Day, a town that's about five
16:06
Speaker 1: miles away from Masca, the nearest small town to that airbnb.
16:11
Speaker 1: Someone said they saw Jay there with two men outside
16:14
Speaker 1: of church. That would have been on the day he
16:16
Speaker 1: disappeared at around six pm in the evening. There was
16:19
Speaker 1: blurry footage outside that church, but no confirmed sighting of Jay.
16:23
Speaker 1: There was another rumor he had been spotted watching a
16:25
Speaker 1: football match. Now this is all going on in the
16:28
Speaker 1: middle of the Euro twenty four matches. It was reported
16:31
Speaker 1: in the press that the mayor of that town, Santiago d'ltierede,
16:34
Speaker 1: said that the Spanish police had spoken to several people
16:37
Speaker 1: who may have seen j Now. I mention this because
16:41
Speaker 1: it's a really good example of how in these situations,
16:44
Speaker 1: when there's fast breaking news, rumors start flying and things
16:47
Speaker 1: do not get corrected. So the rumors started because the
16:51
Speaker 1: mayor mentioned he heard someone saw j Now somehow in
16:56
Speaker 1: some of the news reporting that became, it was definitely
16:59
Speaker 1: Jay and he was watching football. But by the time
17:02
Speaker 1: police went there to question people and other news organizations
17:05
Speaker 1: showed up, they got the real story. The mayor had
17:08
Speaker 1: heard people saying that they saw a young man who
17:11
Speaker 1: may have matched Jay's description. Now, of course Jay had
17:14
Speaker 1: a very general look. He's a young tan guy on
17:17
Speaker 1: vacation and with his darker skin and hair and kind
17:20
Speaker 1: of alive complexion. Honestly, he could have been a local
17:23
Speaker 1: or a tourist. Clearly, they just saw someone who looked
17:26
Speaker 1: vaguely like Jay. It was not Jay. So it's natural
17:31
Speaker 1: to ask a question in a case like this, how
17:34
Speaker 1: common is it to go missing in a place like this? Well.
17:37
Speaker 1: The Independent newspaper did a super interesting synopsis of other
17:41
Speaker 1: men who were from the UK and went missing in
17:44
Speaker 1: Tenerief and have never been found. There was Billy Bennett,
17:48
Speaker 1: who was eighteen when he disappeared. He was on vacation
17:51
Speaker 1: in Tenerief in December of nineteen eighty five. He was
17:54
Speaker 1: supposed to go to the island with a friend of his,
17:56
Speaker 1: but the friend couldn't go, so Billy went alone. He
18:00
Speaker 1: stayed at the Los America's Resort, the same resort where
18:03
Speaker 1: Jay stayed. He went to a nightclub often called the
18:08
Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper's Nightclub. The friend who was supposed to go
18:11
Speaker 1: on the trip talked to the press later. He said
18:14
Speaker 1: that later he did go to Tenerief, he met up
18:16
Speaker 1: with Billy. He said Billy was, in his words, worse
18:19
Speaker 1: for wear. He said Billy told him that he lost
18:22
Speaker 1: all of his money and was worried about having somewhere
18:24
Speaker 1: to go. Billy was never heard from again. In nineteen
18:28
Speaker 1: eighty seven, there was a similar story another young guy,
18:31
Speaker 1: a twenty three year old named Ricky Deacatta. He went
18:34
Speaker 1: to Tenerif in March of nineteen eighty seven to party
18:37
Speaker 1: and never came home. He was working a season out
18:40
Speaker 1: in Tenerief, which a lot of young people in the
18:43
Speaker 1: UK do to earn money. Interestingly, he worked in the
18:46
Speaker 1: same club that Billy frequented, the Sergeant Pepper's Disco pub
18:50
Speaker 1: in the Plia Delas America's resort. His sister was interviewed
18:53
Speaker 1: by the Independent newspaper back in two thousand and one.
18:56
Speaker 1: She said that Ricky was a loving, caring brother. She
19:00
Speaker 1: said he was super excited about going to work in Spain.
19:03
Speaker 1: She said she talked to him and he said he
19:05
Speaker 1: was planning to come home. He called in October to
19:08
Speaker 1: ask for forty pounds for a ticket home for Christmas.
19:11
Speaker 1: Then she said she called him and confirmed that he
19:13
Speaker 1: did get that ticket money. But Ricky never showed up
19:17
Speaker 1: for Christmas and his family never saw him again. His
19:21
Speaker 1: passport was handed in to Spanish authorities, his bag was
19:25
Speaker 1: given to the police, so eventually his parents got his
19:29
Speaker 1: passport and his stuff back, but had no idea what
19:32
Speaker 1: happened to Ricky. There's actually a lot more to this story.
19:35
Speaker 1: There was a documentary made about the case called Looking
19:38
Speaker 1: for Ricky. They did testing on five bodies that were
19:41
Speaker 1: founded Tenery that the tests were inconclusive. The documentary put
19:46
Speaker 1: forward the theory that Ricky may be indirectly involved in
19:49
Speaker 1: the drug trade and tenery basically that he may have
19:51
Speaker 1: annoyed the wrong person, but no one has ever been
19:56
Speaker 1: arrested or charged in this case. In two thousand and four,
20:00
Speaker 1: another brit named Kevin Ainley disappeared. He also had moved
20:04
Speaker 1: to the same area. Just three months after moving there
20:08
Speaker 1: in June of two thousand and four, he vanished. So
20:12
Speaker 1: young men who go to Tenerif to have a good
20:15
Speaker 1: time have disappeared over the years, some under mysterious circumstances.
20:22
Speaker 1: But going back to Jay's case, a lot of people
20:26
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out where the last place that
20:29
Speaker 1: he was actually seen was. Could something have happened to
20:32
Speaker 1: him in that airbnb? And then things started to get
20:37
Speaker 1: even more crazy in the case because a lot of
20:39
Speaker 1: people started flying out to Tenerif from the UK to
20:43
Speaker 1: insert themselves into the investigation. I don't want to sound
20:46
Speaker 1: like the pot calling the kettle black here because I
20:49
Speaker 1: in the past have been accused of doing the same
20:51
Speaker 1: thing when a case is not getting attention after a
20:55
Speaker 1: long time. Yes, I have inserted myself into it, but
20:58
Speaker 1: I do feel strongly that in the beginning of a case,
21:02
Speaker 1: when the police are actively investigating, we have to let
21:05
Speaker 1: them do their jobs, and I think it's important to
21:08
Speaker 1: follow journalistic standards. It's fine to ask the police questions,
21:13
Speaker 1: even aggressively, and to demand the truth, but we have
21:16
Speaker 1: to maintain ethics in true crime reporting. One of the
21:19
Speaker 1: most important rules to follow is not to waste police
21:22
Speaker 1: time or distract from the investigation, and people do not
21:26
Speaker 1: seem to be following that rule here. TikTokers have shown
21:29
Speaker 1: up in Tenery by the dozens and so of journalists.
21:34
Speaker 1: There's one female journalist from an ITV morning show by
21:37
Speaker 1: the way, that's one of the main channels in the UK.
21:40
Speaker 1: She literally has teamed up with one of the British
21:43
Speaker 1: TikTok stars and they're taking selfies together now. To be fair,
21:46
Speaker 1: at least the TikToker, whose name is Paul arn't at
21:50
Speaker 1: least he's a seasoned hiker. He says he did contact
21:53
Speaker 1: the authorities and that he got the go ahead to
21:56
Speaker 1: go out and search on his own. He's been posting
21:59
Speaker 1: lots of videos of himself with a camera, walking through
22:03
Speaker 1: cactus and shooting the airbnb with what looks like a
22:07
Speaker 1: long telephoto lens. It is surreal these bloggers are showing
22:12
Speaker 1: up with drones and cameras, and there's been a lot
22:14
Speaker 1: of criticism that not only are they not helping, they
22:17
Speaker 1: may be making things worse. A lot of people wondered
22:22
Speaker 1: about the two men who Jay was partying with. Who
22:25
Speaker 1: were they, why were they staying in an airbnb on
22:28
Speaker 1: an isolated part of the island, what were they doing
22:31
Speaker 1: there and did they know Jay beforehand? But just like
22:35
Speaker 1: in America, in an open investigation, police do not reveal
22:40
Speaker 1: a lot of information, the Spanish police were no different.
22:44
Speaker 1: Police did question the two men. According to media reports,
22:48
Speaker 1: one of them is known by the nickname Johnny Vegas.
22:51
Speaker 1: They're both British. Spanish police questioned the two men. They
22:55
Speaker 1: said that they were cooperative. Police did get their passports
22:58
Speaker 1: and their information, and then the two men flew home
23:01
Speaker 1: back to Luton in the UK. In addition, a lot
23:05
Speaker 1: of tourists have started flying over to Tenerief, which I
23:08
Speaker 1: find absolutely fascinating. Groups of tourists in jeeps driving around
23:15
Speaker 1: and taking selfies from the crime scene. They call it
23:19
Speaker 1: dark tourism, and I noticed that in a vacuum of information,
23:24
Speaker 1: commenters do make certain criticisms. Side note, laws in European
23:29
Speaker 1: countries are very different to laws in the US, and
23:33
Speaker 1: police do things differently. For example, they aren't allowed to
23:37
Speaker 1: light to suspects in Europe, so they can't, for example,
23:41
Speaker 1: throw two guys in an interrogation room and tell each
23:44
Speaker 1: one that the other one said they did it. They're
23:46
Speaker 1: not allowed to do stuff like that. They have to
23:48
Speaker 1: go about their evidence gathering in a very different and
23:51
Speaker 1: much more low key way. Another reason why I like
23:56
Speaker 1: to cover cold cases is that I find if you
23:59
Speaker 1: have a case that's actually grabbing headlines, you always have
24:03
Speaker 1: people and I call them the obligatory expert. These people
24:05
Speaker 1: who kind of rushed to the scene, they start trying
24:08
Speaker 1: to solve things, and I'm putting solved in air quotes. Really,
24:11
Speaker 1: in my opinion, they're trying to grab headlines for themselves
24:14
Speaker 1: and inevitably they get in the way the police. Well,
24:17
Speaker 1: there's one of those experts in the United Kingdom. He's
24:19
Speaker 1: a former police detective named Mark Williams Thomas. Now he's
24:23
Speaker 1: a TV expert. So early in the case he said
24:27
Speaker 1: he made contact with the family and he made this
24:29
Speaker 1: big public statement and said he could get answers for
24:31
Speaker 1: the family in three days, so he flew to Tenerif
24:34
Speaker 1: and held a press conference. This part was interesting because
24:37
Speaker 1: Mark said he was working with the family. The family
24:41
Speaker 1: wasn't there. He said this was because the Spanish police
24:45
Speaker 1: had not officially sanctioned this press conference. He said he
24:48
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to get information without alienating the authorities.
24:52
Speaker 1: But he said very publicly he was looking for these
24:55
Speaker 1: two witnesses, the guys who Jay had partied with back
24:59
Speaker 1: at the airbnb. He said that he was appealing for
25:02
Speaker 1: these mystery men to come forward, but honestly, the police
25:07
Speaker 1: had already said they talked to these men. The Spanish
25:09
Speaker 1: police said they had their details. The two men had
25:12
Speaker 1: stayed for an extra day in Tenerif, and then they'd
25:15
Speaker 1: flown back to the UK. So the Spanish police know
25:18
Speaker 1: who these people are. There's no need for these men
25:20
Speaker 1: to come forward and talk to a TV detective. But
25:24
Speaker 1: Mark did pose an interesting question in the flurry of
25:27
Speaker 1: all this publicity. He said, quote, what we don't know
25:31
Speaker 1: is why, if they were partying here, they went to
25:33
Speaker 1: a holiday rental around an hour away in a really
25:36
Speaker 1: remote location. I don't know the answer to that. But
25:39
Speaker 1: my focus is to find those people. I am giving
25:42
Speaker 1: them the opportunity to come forward. They are crucial witnesses
25:45
Speaker 1: and ask questions that could get answers. End quote. Again,
25:51
Speaker 1: I don't really understand why these men would need to
25:53
Speaker 1: come forward and talk to him, but I do think
25:56
Speaker 1: that it's a good idea to appeal for anyone who
25:59
Speaker 1: may have been on those roads, on those skinny roads
26:02
Speaker 1: around Mascot the time Jay disappeared to come forward. Jay
26:07
Speaker 1: might have wandered off the road, but we can't rule
26:09
Speaker 1: out the theory that someone could have picked him up there.
26:13
Speaker 1: Mark Williams Thomas had another update on July third. According
26:17
Speaker 1: to the Lancashire Telegraph, Mark said that while Jay was
26:20
Speaker 1: riding with those two guys in the car on the
26:23
Speaker 1: way back to their airbnb, that Jay had allegedly posted
26:26
Speaker 1: a snapchat saying that he had stolen a twelve thousand
26:30
Speaker 1: pound Rolex watch off someone back at the club. Mark
26:34
Speaker 1: told the newspaper quote, We've been unable to validate this
26:37
Speaker 1: in terms of reported thefts. Friends of Jay said he
26:40
Speaker 1: would not make this up and the watch was subject
26:43
Speaker 1: to later conversation between the friends end quote. So people
26:48
Speaker 1: are talking about this stolen rolex online. It's also been
26:52
Speaker 1: reported that after the club where Jay was partying closed
26:55
Speaker 1: that a fight broke out after a man said that
26:57
Speaker 1: his watch was stolen, but again there's no proof of
27:00
Speaker 1: this yet. Mark also said, quote, We've received information that
27:05
Speaker 1: would suggests Jay left the rental property feeling scared. He
27:08
Speaker 1: would not return to the rental, even though that would
27:11
Speaker 1: have been the most sensible course of action. We continue
27:14
Speaker 1: to investigate this aspect end quote. But again there's no
27:18
Speaker 1: proof of this. The Spanish police have said the two
27:21
Speaker 1: British men, who again have cooperated completely and flown home,
27:26
Speaker 1: are irrelevant to the investigation. They actually use the word irrelevant.
27:32
Speaker 1: Then another friend came forward. It turned out that Lucy
27:36
Speaker 1: may not have been the last person to talk to Jay,
27:39
Speaker 1: because Brad, the third friend who was with Lucy and
27:41
Speaker 1: Jay in Tenerife, made his own video. He said that
27:45
Speaker 1: he talked to Jay on the morning he went missing.
27:48
Speaker 1: He said they had a video chat and that in
27:50
Speaker 1: that call, Jay was walking out there in the wilderness,
27:54
Speaker 1: and he said Jay told him he had been walking
27:56
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes, that he was taking a shortcut. Brad
27:59
Speaker 1: said it sounded like Jay may have been slipping out there,
28:03
Speaker 1: maybe on loose stones. Brad also cleared something else up.
28:08
Speaker 1: He said that he, Jay and Lucy did know the
28:11
Speaker 1: two men from the airbnb. He said they had been
28:14
Speaker 1: talking to those guys and hanging out for a couple
28:17
Speaker 1: of days before Jay disappeared. So I do wonder why
28:24
Speaker 1: Jay didn't want to go back to the Airbnb. Did
28:26
Speaker 1: something unpleasant go down between him and those two men
28:29
Speaker 1: late night? But even if that was true, the facts
28:35
Speaker 1: right now or that someone did see Jay and talk
28:38
Speaker 1: to him after he left the Airbnb. And this is
28:41
Speaker 1: where you see the dark side of social media, because yes,
28:44
Speaker 1: you get a lot of tips with publicity, but you
28:46
Speaker 1: also get a lot of weird people and internet trolls.
28:50
Speaker 1: And this is where the dark tourism and these message
28:53
Speaker 1: boards cross over from kind of a curiosity to something
28:56
Speaker 1: that is, in my opinion, much more sinister. Someone hacked
29:01
Speaker 1: Jay's Instagram. It's been reported that it was hacked by
29:04
Speaker 1: someone who was trying to get in it to find clues.
29:07
Speaker 1: I have no idea if that's true, and if so,
29:10
Speaker 1: if it's someone who knew him or someone who was
29:13
Speaker 1: trying to get information after reading about the case, but
29:15
Speaker 1: either way, this is shocking. Jay's sister addressed the message boards.
29:19
Speaker 1: She wrote on social media, quote, all of the groups
29:22
Speaker 1: are full of trolls and sickos. I can't believe some
29:25
Speaker 1: people are actually this sick in the head. There are
29:28
Speaker 1: people hacking my accounts and Jay's family, making it pure
29:31
Speaker 1: lies and pretending we are all in on it. End quote.
29:36
Speaker 1: And at some point the internet turned on Jay himself.
29:40
Speaker 1: We talk a lot in true crime about the perfect victim,
29:44
Speaker 1: the idea that to get headlines, to get public sympathy,
29:47
Speaker 1: a victim has to seem pure, which I think is ridiculous,
29:50
Speaker 1: but it's kind of a true crime trope that refuses
29:53
Speaker 1: to die. It turned out that Jay, the fun loving
29:57
Speaker 1: teen in the pictures, had had a dark past. Twenty one,
30:06
Speaker 1: Jay and seven other teens were part of a vicious
30:09
Speaker 1: machete attack on a seventeen year old named Tom. The
30:13
Speaker 1: attack apparently started after a night out. Tom was having
30:17
Speaker 1: issues with one of Jay's friend group and it turned violent.
30:21
Speaker 1: The guys attacked Tom and chased him outside the club.
30:24
Speaker 1: In court later, Tom said that Jay and his friends
30:27
Speaker 1: were like a pack of gorillas. They attacked Tom with
30:30
Speaker 1: a machete and a golf club, hitting him so viciously
30:34
Speaker 1: that his skull was exposed. Later in court, the judge
30:38
Speaker 1: said he was disgusted by Jay and his friends. He
30:41
Speaker 1: said he was disgusted by the fact the teens continued
30:43
Speaker 1: to laugh and joke throughout the trial and the sentencing process.
30:47
Speaker 1: The judge said that some of the group, though reportedly
30:50
Speaker 1: not Jay, were guilty of intimidation of witnesses, drug charges,
30:54
Speaker 1: and robbery. Now it has been reported that Jay was
30:57
Speaker 1: not one of the main instigators in this group, that
30:59
Speaker 1: he was just kind of on the periphery, But either way,
31:02
Speaker 1: this attack was Horrifyingly, the sentences were shockingly light. In
31:08
Speaker 1: my opinion, Jay was given an eighteen month community order,
31:12
Speaker 1: like probation in the United States. He was required to
31:16
Speaker 1: do community service and unpaid work. That is it. Some
31:20
Speaker 1: people described his disappearance as karma. I must say that,
31:26
Speaker 1: in my opinion, the victim of this attack showed some
31:29
Speaker 1: class here. He wrote on Facebook quote, whoever is writing
31:34
Speaker 1: on these tiktoks, give it a rest. The young lad's
31:36
Speaker 1: missing and his family's heartbroken. Put yourself in their shoes,
31:39
Speaker 1: Stop talking nonsense on social media and get this lad
31:42
Speaker 1: found mentioning my name, this and that. Have some respect
31:47
Speaker 1: and help find this boy and get him back to
31:49
Speaker 1: his family. End quote. The case just kept getting crazier
31:55
Speaker 1: every day. The British news would open with day ten,
32:00
Speaker 1: day eleven of the Jay Slater search. Then more and
32:03
Speaker 1: more people started showing up. This tourist ustin it. You
32:06
Speaker 1: had psychics and other TikTok people with drones, more TV journalists,
32:11
Speaker 1: people retracing the last steps from the airbnb. Then, in
32:17
Speaker 1: another stranger than fiction twist, one hiker who was reported
32:23
Speaker 1: to be someone who was looking for Jay, though that
32:25
Speaker 1: was never confirmed, police had to come in and rescue him.
32:29
Speaker 1: The press release read quote tired and disoriented, he was
32:33
Speaker 1: located by the agents and the rescue team who helped
32:35
Speaker 1: get him out of the ravine end quote. At first
32:38
Speaker 1: a lot of people got excited. They thought maybe that
32:40
Speaker 1: Jay had been found, but no, this was some random
32:43
Speaker 1: person who had turned up, presumably for the search, and
32:46
Speaker 1: gotten lost himself, wasting more police time and taking effort
32:50
Speaker 1: away from the attempt to find Jay. Every area, every
32:59
Speaker 1: single small town, even the ones where you say we
33:02
Speaker 1: can leave our doors unlocked at such a safe place,
33:04
Speaker 1: they all have this side. So this is not unique
33:07
Speaker 1: to this island, but Pliadella's America's, where Jay was staying,
33:11
Speaker 1: in particular, is known for drugs. There have been a
33:14
Speaker 1: lot of high profile drug trafficking cases there in recent years,
33:18
Speaker 1: including murders committed by gangs called the Timeshare murders who
33:22
Speaker 1: were kind of fighting over property. In addition to that,
33:26
Speaker 1: a local news outlet called Canarian Weekly reported that crime
33:30
Speaker 1: in the Canary Islands has spiked post COVID. In twenty
33:34
Speaker 1: twenty two, rape was up by twenty seven percent, violent
33:38
Speaker 1: robberies thirty two percent, and drug trafficking forty one percent.
33:42
Speaker 1: So it is possible that Jay was partying with these
33:46
Speaker 1: guys and that he got into a confrontation with them
33:49
Speaker 1: or with someone else. We do have to be open
33:51
Speaker 1: minded and consider that. But I keep coming back to
33:55
Speaker 1: the fact Jay was seen by this woman after leaving
34:00
Speaker 1: the airbnb. Whatever happened that night, he was out of
34:04
Speaker 1: that property. It was more he was headed toward home.
34:07
Speaker 1: He walked uphill, not downhill, toward the town. Why did
34:10
Speaker 1: he do that? And while thinking about that, I also
34:14
Speaker 1: want to think about what we can learn from this
34:16
Speaker 1: case going forward. One of the reasons that I wanted
34:19
Speaker 1: to do this story was because I have so many
34:21
Speaker 1: of these cases where someone's out and they get into trouble,
34:25
Speaker 1: they get into a fight with someone, or they're lost
34:29
Speaker 1: or potentially intoxicated, and their phone battery dies. So I
34:33
Speaker 1: did some research and I found out that there is
34:36
Speaker 1: a way if you have an iPhone or an Android,
34:39
Speaker 1: there are ways to find someone's location even if the
34:41
Speaker 1: battery is dead. But and this is the crucial part,
34:44
Speaker 1: you have to enable it before you lose the phone,
34:47
Speaker 1: not afterwards. To do this on an iPhone, you go
34:51
Speaker 1: to settings, your name and then find my Then you
34:55
Speaker 1: took the option that says my network. This apparently enables
34:59
Speaker 1: to find my feature to work even if the battery
35:01
Speaker 1: is dead or the phone is offline. There's also an
35:04
Speaker 1: option there called c Last Location. You can opt in
35:07
Speaker 1: and that will allow your phone to automatically send its
35:11
Speaker 1: last location to Apple even if the battery is dying.
35:16
Speaker 1: I also wonder if there were other apps on Jay's
35:18
Speaker 1: phone that could have helped. We saw in a previous
35:21
Speaker 1: case that, for example, the Health app was very helpful
35:25
Speaker 1: in measuring exactly where this young man was walking and
35:29
Speaker 1: how long his strides were Secondly, and this will be controversial,
35:33
Speaker 1: I know, but I really advise people not to give
35:37
Speaker 1: to go fundmes unless you know the families personally. This
35:40
Speaker 1: is no reflection on Jay or his family. This is
35:43
Speaker 1: just a general rule that I follow because we have
35:47
Speaker 1: no idea who is using the money or what it's
35:50
Speaker 1: being used for. There's really no transparency. I would add,
35:54
Speaker 1: if you do give go fund me money to anyone,
35:56
Speaker 1: you just have to accept the fact that you're gonna
35:59
Speaker 1: have no control over where it goes, and give it
36:02
Speaker 1: as a gift with no strings attached and never think
36:04
Speaker 1: about it again. Treat it like you would a gift
36:06
Speaker 1: to a friend, because in my opinion, it is pointless
36:10
Speaker 1: to give to a GoFundMe and later complain about how
36:14
Speaker 1: the funds are used. When you give to go fund me,
36:16
Speaker 1: you relinquish that control. And third, I think we all
36:20
Speaker 1: have to take a long, hard look at what we're
36:23
Speaker 1: doing on social media. If we post on social media
36:27
Speaker 1: in groups for a case, we really have to remember
36:30
Speaker 1: this is a living person, this is a real family.
36:33
Speaker 1: In this case, people have been making memes about Jay
36:36
Speaker 1: Slater's case, treating it like a joke, sending messages to
36:40
Speaker 1: the family. Trying to get into someone's Instagram and then
36:43
Speaker 1: even clogging up the search trails. It's not only immoral
36:47
Speaker 1: and unhelpful, it's potentially illegal. It's easy to forget. These
36:51
Speaker 1: are not just news stories. These are real people. So
36:56
Speaker 1: why did Jay randomly walk uphill? I do have a theory,
37:01
Speaker 1: it's just an idea at this point. Again, I'm not
37:03
Speaker 1: actively investigating this case, letting the police do that. I
37:07
Speaker 1: did a Google Map search. I asked for walking directions
37:11
Speaker 1: from the Airbnb down to the town of Masca below.
37:15
Speaker 1: I noticed that when I did this for driving directions,
37:18
Speaker 1: it guided me down the hill from the Airbnb. It
37:21
Speaker 1: said it would be a twenty minute drive, and this
37:24
Speaker 1: was about a thirty kilometer distance, about eighteen miles. But
37:28
Speaker 1: if you put in walking directions, for some reason, the
37:32
Speaker 1: walking direction takes you back up the hill and it
37:35
Speaker 1: says it takes six hours and sixteen minutes. So and
37:39
Speaker 1: again this is just a guess. Maybe Jay did start
37:42
Speaker 1: walking in that direction, not realizing it was eighteen miles
37:45
Speaker 1: away and that it would have taken him at least
37:47
Speaker 1: eleven hours to do that walk. Maybe he was out
37:51
Speaker 1: of it. It was early in the morning, he'd been
37:53
Speaker 1: out all night. Given what we know now, and again
37:57
Speaker 1: we do not have all the info that police do
38:00
Speaker 1: for good reasons, I do think it's more likely that
38:04
Speaker 1: Jay got off the road oad somehow or tried to
38:06
Speaker 1: take a shortcut. Jay's phone was dying and he was
38:10
Speaker 1: tired and dehydrated. Temperatures in that area are brutal, approaching
38:14
Speaker 1: one hundred degrees during the day and down to the
38:16
Speaker 1: thirties a night. In fact, the UK Foreign Office has
38:20
Speaker 1: a travel advice warning for that area. They tell visitors
38:23
Speaker 1: to be very careful when hiking or walking in that area.
38:27
Speaker 1: There's also, by the way, a risk of altitude sickness
38:29
Speaker 1: up there, which would have been a lot worse with
38:32
Speaker 1: a hangover and dehydration. So this was Jay's first trip abroad,
38:37
Speaker 1: first time in a foreign country. The terrain there can
38:40
Speaker 1: be deadly, but that's easy to forget. It reminds me
38:44
Speaker 1: a lot of people who go missing in Malibu. It's
38:47
Speaker 1: such a temperate, nice area with the beach during the
38:49
Speaker 1: day and lots of people around, it is easy to
38:52
Speaker 1: forget that if you get lost out there, you're basically
38:55
Speaker 1: crossing a desert in your beach clothes. Once reporters stopped
39:00
Speaker 1: walking in the hills in their tennis shoes and they
39:03
Speaker 1: actually took the time to interview local residents, which is
39:06
Speaker 1: such an important part of these stories. They interviewed a
39:09
Speaker 1: woman who lived in that area, and I think that
39:11
Speaker 1: her comment was one of the most sensible of the
39:16
Speaker 1: entire investigation. She said that people go missing in those
39:20
Speaker 1: hills all the time. It takes police months or years
39:25
Speaker 1: to find some of them, and some of them are
39:27
Speaker 1: never found. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
39:39
Speaker 1: Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
39:41
Speaker 1: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me
39:44
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to
39:48
Speaker 1: Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Music contributed by Ben Sale.
39:52
Speaker 1: This episode was sound designed and mixed by Noah Camer
39:56
Speaker 1: Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Els Crowley.
40:00
Speaker 1: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
40:03
Speaker 1: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple podcas. You can
40:06
Speaker 1: follow the show on Instagram at Helen gon Pod. If
40:09
Speaker 1: you have a case you'd like me and my team
40:11
Speaker 1: to look into You can reach out to us at
40:13
Speaker 1: our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven
40:16
Speaker 1: four four, six one four or five. That's six seven
40:19
Speaker 1: eight seven four four six one four five. School of
40:31
Speaker 1: Humans