Body found on Spanish island during search for missing British teenager Jay Slater
By Leah Collins and Jack Guy, CNN
(CNN) — Search teams looking for missing British teenager Jay Slater on the Spanish island of Tenerife have found the body of a young man.
“After 29 days of constant search the lifeless body of a young man has been found in the Masca area” in the Tenerife mountains, the Guardia Civil, Spain’s law enforcement agency, said in a statement Monday.
“All indications are that it could be the young British man missing since June 17, pending full identification,” the Guardia Civil said.
Preliminary investigations suggest the young man “could have suffered an accident/fall in the inaccessible area,” it added.
Slater, who was 19 and from Lancashire, northern England, went missing almost a month ago after attending the NRG festival on the south of the island.
He was last heard from around 8:30 a.m. local time (3:30am ET) on June 17, according to one of his friends, Lucy Mae, who set up a GoFundMe.
She wrote on the GoFundMe page that Slater “had met two people on Sunday night” and left to go to their apartment, which was “in a very secluded location.”
She said Slater left the apartment at 8 a.m. local (3 a.m. ET) and walked for half an hour, before “frantically ringing me when his phone reached 1%.”
“His last location was on an off road track, which was a 10 hour walk from his hotel,” Slater’s friend said.
LBT Global, a charity that supports British nationals in crisis overseas, said in a post on Facebook that it was “saddened to announce that a body found in Tenerife does look to be that of Jay Slater.”
“It is understood the body was found close to the site of his mobile phone’s last location,” the charity said.
“Although formal identification is yet to be carried out, the body was found with Mr Slater’s possessions and clothes.”
Britain’s Lancashire Police said the Guardia Civil had notified them “that they have found the body of a man and that the indications are that this is Jay Slater.”
“While at this stage no formal identification has been carried out our thoughts are very much with Jay’s family at this time, and we continue to offer them our support,” it added.
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