The discovery of what police in Tenerife believe is Jay Slater’s body appears to have brought to an end a search that lasted for almost a month.
Whether it curtails the relentless stream of online speculation that has made the suffering of the Slater family all the more unbearable remains to be seen.
Only on Sunday Slater’s mum, Debbie Duncan, felt compelled to speak of “awful comments and theories filling social media”.
Within days of his disappearance, a number of Facebook groups dedicated to the case had been set up – with some going on to attract hundreds of thousands of members.
Many members of the groups used them to engage in serious discussion about the teenager’s possible fate, or simply to express sympathy for him, his family and his friends.
However, the story also prompted a seemingly endless succession of wild theories, often based on entirely unsubstantiated rumour, fabricated screenshots of online messages from people connected to the case and, in some cases, faked videos purporting to show Mr Slater or what happened to him.
In some posts, users made abusive and untrue statements about members of his family.
For others, the plight of Jay Slater simply became the source of memes and joke suggestions as to how rescuers could find him.
Within minutes of the announcement that a body believed to be that of the 19-year-old had been found, those social media groups were awash with anger and recriminations.
‘Vile trolls’
In one Facebook group with more than 282,000 members, Karen Glen said: “I hope when the family have processed everything they go after all these big accounts that went live, wrote all the rubbish they did, making their pain 100 times worse.”
And Loz Kelly wrote: “Absolutely heartbreaking. Hope all you vile trolls are ashamed! Sick.”
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Body found in search for Jay Slater
How the search for Jay Slater unfolded
The various Facebook groups and comments sections under TikTok videos became fertile ground for varied but mostly unsubstantiated speculation as to what might have happened to the teenager.
Some of the more outlandish conjecture suggested he was alive but in hiding, while others claimed he was being held by some kind of criminal gang.
‘Armchair detectives should be ashamed’
Monday’s announcement suggests those particular theories will finally be treated with the contempt they deserve – although the nature and intensity of the interest in this case among members of the public means many more will doubtless sprout up in their place.
Liz Constantine said on Facebook: “This group needs to be deleted and let the family have some peace.
“All you armchair detectives should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Lily Eason Miller wrote: “All nasty people here, are you happy now because you’ve all gone quiet.
“Hope you’re all happy. Sick people.”
Meanwhile, a TikTok user commented under a video about the discovery of the body: “So sad, I think a lot of creators on here will need to start apologising.”
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