Jay Slater’s mother has travelled to Tenerife for a documentary examining the cause of her son’s death.
Mr Slater was 19 when he went missing in 2024 in the north of the island after attending a music festival and was not found for 29 days.
An inquest found he had fallen from height and suffered traumatic head injuries, while no evidence of third-party involvement was uncovered and the death was ruled accidental.
While the search continued his family were bombarded by armchair detectives, many of whom pursued fantastical claims of Mr Slater’s fate on social media including TikTok.
In a new Channel 5 documentary Debbie Duncan still had a crucial question about her son’s death following his disappearance hours after he called friends to say he was lost and had no water: Did he suffer?
Ms Duncan, 57, travelled to Tenerife’s Rural de Teno national park with her brother Glen for the Cause of Death programme to follow Mr Slater’s final path.
Filming took place weeks after Ms Duncan received the delayed Spanish post-mortem report on her son’s death, which ruled he died from a fall into an 82ft-deep ravine.
She discusses the Spanish and British post-mortems with pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd, who conducted the Home Office examination of Mr Slater’s body.
Jay Slater (middle), pictured with his mother Debbie and uncle Glen, died in Tenerife in 2024 after falling down a ravine
Ms Duncan travelled to the village near where her son was found alongside Dr Richard Shepherd to examine her son’s final movements
Dr Shepherd told The Sun Ms Duncan wanted to know whether her son had felt anything before his death.
‘She wanted to know how his injuries would have affected him. I was able to tell her that yes, it was an awful injury, and yes, it killed him.
‘But the head injury was so severe that it probably would have killed him immediately. It was the end — there was no pain and suffering.
‘He wasn’t injured on the hillside dying slowly, and that was important for her to understand.’
Dr Shepherd added Ms Duncan’s search for the truth had been particularly pronounced because of the ‘hurtful speculation’ about the apprentice bricklayer’s death.
Rumours swirled online that Mr Slater had been murdered and manipulated video was posted of him being tortured.
But there was no evidence of deliberate harm.
Dr Shepherd said the Spanish and British authorities moved slowly back and forth during the investigation, leaving an information vacuum for online sleuths to fill.
But he said there was nothing to suggest a story other than the tragic fall ruled by the inquest.
He joined Ms Duncan and her brother as they travelled to Masca, the village where Mr Slater left his Airbnb after partying with friends he met at the NRG music festival.
Half an hour after leaving the house his friend Lucy Law called him and was told he was thirsty and ‘frightened’.
During the 29-day search for Mr Slater, online sleuths bombarded Ms Duncan with theories on her son’s whereabouts
But Dr Shepherd, who carried out the Home Office post-mortem on Mr Slater, told his mother the 19-year-old’s death was quick when he fell after becoming lost in the north of the island
At 8.50am, 20 minutes after the first call, he rang Ms Law to tell her he was in the ‘middle of nowhere’ and ‘all I can see are mountains’ before his phone battery ran out two minutes later.
Ms Duncan said in the programme that she had thought of her son: ‘Why did you not ring me?’
She continued: ‘But then I also think: “Why did I not ring him when I saw his Snapchat that morning?”‘
‘Nobody knew what was going to happen. I need to stop feeling guilty about that. It’s really hard.’
She wanted to know why her son did not turn back after telling Ms Law he felt scared on the road but in her visit to Masca, she understood his helplessness as he stood among the rocks.
She said: ‘We thought, how was it possible to get to a place where he said to Lucy: “I’m lost, all I can see is mountains”? He must have been so scared, thinking, I can’t turn back.
‘And when you look at it, you just know why. The closure I’ve got is from the walk, knowing where he set off from, how he has seen the ocean and gone down, and where he got to before he died.
‘Seeing all that now, I understand it better. That’s what closure has given me.’
Ms Duncan said she knew her son would be ‘sorry’ for the ‘mistakes he made’ and the consequences which came thereafter.
Cause of Death is on Channel 5 on Wednesday at 9pm.
