Jay Slater's family face fresh agony as YouTube detective makes wild new claims
A notorious "YouTube detective" has made new wild claims about Jay Slater's death, sparking fresh anguish for the teenager's family.
The apprentice bricklayer, from Oswaldtwistle, vanished on June 17 while enjoying a three-day music festival in Tenerife with friends. Tragically, after an intense search lasting over a month, the 19 year old's body were discovered on July 15 near the village of Masca, just metres from his last known location.
Throughout the ordeal, Jay's family were bombarded with sick online abuse which included conspiracy theories about what had happened to him. And even now two months after his body was found, more speculative assertions are being made.
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Online detective Dan O'Keeffe has controversially suggested that Jay showed signs of being tortured when his body was found, the Mirror reports. His allegations have led to more wild debate as well with nearly 1,000 people commenting on his video.
While many people have hit out at the suggestions saying it is "nonsense," others appear to believe there could be some truth behind it and that Mr O'Keeffe should go to the police with his evidence.
One person said: "This video needs to go to the UK police. It has been obvious from the get go he was murdered," and another wrote: "If his family see this, and you truly have the evidence you should be going to the police, this is horrifying news to hear on YouTube for the family. The UK police need to be sent all information.
And TikTok user @cometcrime also has dismissed the video and claimed she has contacted Mr O'Keeffe who did not give her a straight answer about whether he had handed the video to police. She said: "I've had some email contact with Dan O'Keeffe where I've tried to ask him some very specific questions over and over again where he has refused to answer them. The main one was have you please handed that to Lancashire Police, he kept saying watch my video, watch my video."
However, another person countered saying: "Absolute nonsense another fantasist writing his own fiction novel on some poor kids demise for views."
The preliminary autopsy pointed to his cause of death being on account of a 'fall or plunge from height', with the Civil Guard confirming that Jay's catastrophic injuries included several broken bones. But despite the findings giving his loved ones some comfort, it still remains unknown why Jay ventured out alone.
Meanwhile Jay's father Warren has launched his own TikTok page to discuss the investigation into his son's disappearance. In his latest video, which has been viewed over 50,000 times, Warren said: "Just to show a video to confirm this is my account. The keys I found do belong to Down the Rapids guy. I found them at the end of the path.
"I haven't been back to Tenerife ever since I came back from looking for my son. The videos that I've been posting are just documentation of what I was up to, where I was searching, things I was looking at while I was out there and that's it."
LancsLive reported last week how the Lancashire coroner who oversaw the inquest into Nicola Bulley's death will be in charge of the final hearing looking into the case of Jay Slater. An inquest opened at Preston Coroner's Court last month.
A final hearing is expected to take place, possibly later this year, once Spanish authorities have forwarded the evidence relating to their investigation to Lancashire's Senior Coroner Dr James Adeley. Dr Adeley confirmed to LancsLive that he will be holding the inquest into Jay's death. Given the likely interest the hearing is also expected to be held at County Hall in Preston.