Aston Coke stood frozen in absolute despair on Tuesday night, his eyes locked on the dirt track in Tyre, Trelawny, where detectives methodically processed the crime scene.

Down in the bushes lay his little girl, 10-year-old Shani Coke—affectionately known to her heartbroken family as ‘Kaidra’—who was found partially nude, her throat slashed in a senseless act of unimaginable cruelty. For hours, her sick father could only watch the flashing police lights cut through the darkness, unable to wake up from the nightmare that had landed squarely on his doorstep.

Shani, the second of four daughters, was the pride of her neighbourhood—a bright, well-mannered angel who “mashed up” her academics at Troy Primary School.