Why was it that finding Jay Slater took 29 days?

You most likely had not heard of Jay Slater until a little over a month ago.
Like so many other British summertime visitors, he was a teenager taking his first vacation away from home in Tenerife.
While traveling, mishaps do occur periodically, and occasionally they turn into catastrophes. Seldom do people ever learn about them.
Not for Jay, 19, whose family has found themselves in the public eye after a month-long search that has captured the attention of millions of users on social media.
However, it now appears that Jay’s case’s facts are rather straightforward. He perished after becoming lost in dangerous terrain.
His body was discovered last week, and his family had hoped that the internet craze would end. However, it didn’t.

One question is currently being asked by many: why did it take 29 days to find him?
Over the past month, we have been inside the hunt for Jay and reporting on the puzzle while in Tenerife.
What we’ve observed poses queries and provides solutions.

In Playa de Las Americas, the center of the Spanish island’s nightlife, he made the decision to get into a car with two males.
These men, who were apparently British nationals, drove the apprentice bricklayer approximately 22 miles (36 km) north to an Airbnb in the village of Masca, a small community encircled by mountains and ravines. Later, the men were permitted to depart the island after the Spanish police, the Guardia Civil, swiftly ruled them out of the investigation.
An image of Jay, smoking a cigarette and tagging the flat door at 07:30 BST on the social media platform Snapchat, became the primary focus of the inquiry right away.
It indicated that he had visited the Airbnb. Then there were two phone calls.

At about 8.30 BST, his buddy Lucy Law received one. Jay told her he needed water, had 1% battery life left on his phone, and was lost.
While strolling on uneven, stony terrain, Jay told his friend Brad Hargreaves via video chat that he had to walk home for eleven hours because he had missed his bus.
How was he transported to the mountains?
When Ofelia Medina Hernandez last saw him, it was around 8:00 BST. She claims that when Jay inquired about the next bus, which is at 10:00, he might not have comprehended the response. Then he started to move.

It’s uncertain if there is further information available to explain Jay’s presence in the mountains or his decision to venture into such hazardous area during that window of time before his disappearance at 9:00 BST.
It appears that investigators have not been able to respond to this.
More information may become available to the public if a coroner in the UK chooses to convene an inquest.

The Rural de Teno park provided Spanish police with a location to work from at 8:50 BST, thanks to Jay’s phone pinging a mast.
Teams tasked with searching rushed into challenging terrain. There are sheer walls, deep ravines, and dense vegetation there.
Mist rolling in from the sea causes the weather to veer between unexpected decreases in visibility and temperatures as high as 30 degrees Celsius.
Press officers from the Guardia Civil referenced drones searching the rugged terrain, helicopter crews, and specialized sniffing dog teams from Madrid in the information they provided to the media.

Last week, in the valley near the phone pole, human bones were discovered. It was not the several outside search teams or TikTokers that joined in that discovered the body, but the cops.
The Canary Islands Higher Court of Justice and the police both verified Jay’s identity through fingerprint analysis.
His wounds were consistent with a fall from a height into rocky terrain.
After searching this area for days, nothing was discovered.
Did they pass him by accident the first time?
Regarding this, the Guardia Civil has declined to comment. As journalists, we were informed that “we don’t give details of the investigation”.

Few people outside of a close-knit community in Tenerife were aware, until recently, that the search actually went on even after the police officially called it off two weeks in.
Though the search had undoubtedly not finished, it seems the Guardia Civil may have thought that declaring they had stopped looking would help to defuse some of the media interest surrounding the case.
In a region known as Juan Lopez, out of sight from the main paths and trails surrounding Masca, mountaineers armed with machetes had been abseiling into unreachable areas and chopping away at vegetation.

According to the Guardia Civil, “discreet” searches were conducted in order to fend off “curious onlookers”.
Whether this was the best course of action is still up for debate. Some of the crazier conspiracies would have been avoided if the British police had adopted a more transparent, continuous update system while conducting missing person searches.
The same question dominated the search for Nicola Bulley in Lancashire, which is only 24 miles (38 km) from Jay’s hometown of Oswaldtwistle. Lancashire Police likewise had to deal with it.

While the searches went on, Jay’s past was interwoven with fictitious stories about Moroccan mafia organizations or global drug smuggling rings on Facebook, X, Instagram reels, and TikTok.
His family was subjected to outright falsehoods and disinformation, including fictitious recordings of screaming that implied he had been murdered.
Jay’s mother Debbie received numerous messages from strangers alleging that her son had been abducted.

Brad’s mother, Rachel Hargreaves, attempted to control the deluge of messages and comments on the family’s official Facebook page as she and Debbie flew to Tenerife.
After informing the BBC that some anonymous trolls had made a fictitious account in her late mother’s name, she quickly found herself in the target spotlight herself.
Debbie even begged for mercy in an unauthorized Facebook page devoted to Jay Slater “theories” at one point. A barrage of criticism and cynicism ensued.

Returning Jay’s body home is the next top priority for his family.
The paperwork should be finished in about a week, according to Matthew Searle, CEO of the missing person’s organization LBT Global, who told the BBC that the specific arrangements will be kept confidential to safeguard the family’s privacy.
It seems like trolls and amateur investigators are still trying to get in the way of his body being flown home. Some are looking for autopsy findings on the internet.
Witnesses, including the guys who were in the Airbnb with Jay, might be called to testify and respond to questions if an inquest is held in the UK.

The coroner may declare an accidental fall to be the cause of death in the absence of an inquest if the evidence supports this claim. However, the family’s desires will also be taken into account.
The loss and demise of their “beautiful boy,” described by his family as a “living nightmare,” will cause profound pain for Jay’s numerous friends as well as the entire family.
However, there’s also the perplexing experience of being the victims of the worst kind of social media.
Perhaps in the future, police services will have a struggle as this becomes the new standard for high-profile missing person cases in the modern era.
The individuals who knew Jay back in Oswaldtwistle are hoping that this part of the story is, at least, finished.