The father of murdered schoolgirl Paige Doherty passed away on Saturday after it was reported that he had been struggling to come to terms with his 15-year-old daughter's death two years ago. 37-year-old Jon Bothwell had taken ill while at his home in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire and passed away after he was taken to Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride on Saturday evening. 

According to the Daily Record, Bothwell's 71-year-old mother Roseanne said that her son had "died of a broken heart". The Scotland police concluded that there seemed to be no suspicious circumstances surrounding Jon's death. Roseanne said, "He was heartbroken. Paige loved Jon out her mind too. He never got over it. He died of a broken heart. He was never the same after she died". 

"He said he used to have nightmares where he'd see her at the bottom of his bed and she wanted him to go with her. We'll never get over Paige's death and Jon took it the worst. He passed out in the bedroom but they brought him back. The paramedics then took him to hospital. He was in a coma. He died there on Saturday," Roseanne continued.

Paige was only 15-years-old when she was murdered by 34-year-old John Leathem in the Delicious Deli sandwich shop in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire in the year 2016. John Leathem was a married man and had two children. He inflicted around 61 stab wounds on her and around more than 140 injuries before storing her body in a shed in his home and then dumping her remains in the bushes. 

Paige's father Jon Bothwell was reportedly upset and hurt at being isolated from Paige at the time of her funeral which was arranged by her mother Pamela Munro and her stepfather Andy Munro. Bothwell and Munro had split up when Paige was only two-years-old. Last July, Pamela had another daughter whom she named Penny Margaret Paige after her murdered daughter Paige Doherty. 

John Leathem did end up admitting to the murder of the young teenager but his jail term was reduced to 23 years from 27 years after an appeal. In the year 2017, Paige's mother decided to campaign for changes to the justice system in the name of her daughter. She told STV, "How can somebody justify killing a child as brutally as he killed Paige and say, 'It's not as bad as this, or as bad as that, so we're going to reduce it?"

"They add in that (Leathem is) a family man and he's never offended before. That just makes it worse. It shows how unpredictable he really is - so make an example of him. I think they need to set a minimum punishment part when it comes to excessive killing, such as child killers. I think it needs to be a minimum of 35 years. In our eyes, nothing is ever going to be high enough for taking our wee girl's life," she continued. 

The decision pushed Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson to introduce full life sentences north of the border. At the time, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon shared, "I met Paige's mother (in 2016) and there literally are no words to express the pain and grief she and the rest of her family have gone through. As well as being first minister, I'm also a human being and there are many occasions when I look at decisions of courts and wish that different decisions had been reached. It may well be this is one such case". 

At the time that Leathem was led away to start serving his life sentence, Paige's family and friends shouted "scum", "monster", and "rot in hell". Paige had been knifed repeatedly after she went into Leathem's shop to buy some breakfast. At an earlier hearing, Leathem told the court that he "over-reacted" when Paige allegedly threatened to report him for a sexual offense if he did not give her a job.