TRELAWNY, Jamaica — Aston Coke, the father of slain 10-year-old Shani Coke, died Thursday morning at the Percy Junor Hospital after suffering from a prolonged illness.

It comes just under two weeks after his daughter was laid to rest.

Her partially nude body was found with her throat slashed on July 21. Her murder rocked the usually quiet community of Tyre in Troy, Trelawny.

“He was already gravely ill, and then when his daughter was murdered he took down worse. He was in hospital shortly after the incident and didn’t even get to go to her funeral two weeks ago. His heart was broken,” a family friend told Observer Online.

In a July 22 interview, Aaron Coke said his daughter was well loved and admired by many in her community.

“Her grandmother sent her to the shop, and she did not make it back home. Someone stopped her on the street and disturbed her somehow and slashed her throat… She was loving and caring in the community growing up. Everybody knows her. She knows everyone. She can see you and call you by your full name. She had a sense of humour. She was doing well in school, and she got a lot of academic awards,” said the heartbroken father.

“She decided that she wanted to make something out of herself growing up, because we were driving that into her head, but things just happened overnight,” added Coke, as he alleged that the man believed to have killed his daughter was a habitual offender.

Her alleged killer, Delroy Coke, was mobbed to death while his father was injured during an attack by residents.

READ: A light extinguished

Shani Coke.