Jay Slater's best friend Lucy Law pays heartbreaking tribute to 'happiest' person after his ‘deteriorated’ body found
16 July 2024, 12:35 | Updated: 16 July 2024, 12:39
Jay Slater’s best friend has paid tribute to "the happiest and most smiley person in the room" after a body was found by police looking for the 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer who had been missing for a month.
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Jay’s close friend Lucy Law, who was the last known person to speak to him during a phone call on June 17, issued a tribute on her Instagram page.
She said: "Honestly lost for words.
"Always the happiest and most smiley person in the room, you was (sic) one of a kind Jay and you'll be missed more than you know.
"I'm sure you'll 'have your dancing shoes polished and ready' waiting for us all.
"We all love you buddy. Fly high."
Lucy had been helping Jay’s mother raise funds to keep search efforts going by organising a GoFundMe page on her behalf.
Charity LBT Global said remains were found with the 19-year-old's clothes and possessions near his last known location on Monday.
His family said that they believe he was killed instantly after falling from height.
Read more: Jay Slater was 'killed instantly' after falling from height in Tenerife, family believe
"It looks as if he fell from a height so he would most likely have been killed instantly and he wasn't there for a long time," a family spokesman said.
Members of a mountain rescue team from the Spanish Civil Guard discovered the body near the village of Masca.
The Spanish Civil Guard said Mr Slater, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, could have fallen in the steep and inaccessible area where he was discovered.
It released video footage of rescuers climbing rock faces and battling through scrub as they carried out the search.
Part of the clip shows two members of the search team being winched out of the area by helicopter after the body had been found and recovered.
Mr Slater had attended the NRG music festival with two friends before his disappearance, and his last known location was the Rural de Teno Park in the north of the Canary Island, which was about an 11-hour walk from his accommodation.
He had travelled to an Airbnb in Masca after a night out, but the two men said to have rented the property were later ruled "not relevant" to the case.
Spanish police called off the search for the apprentice bricklayer at the end of June after helicopters, drones and search dogs were deployed to find him.
