In 2013, 50-year-old Sandra Coke, a capital case investigator for the federal public defender's office headquartered in Sacramento, California resided in Oakland with her 15-year-old daughter. As a federal investigator in cases involving death row inmates who had appealed their sentences, Coke interviewed them, their family members and acquaintances for the public defenders office in the Eastern District of California. The job often involved travel around California and into other states.
In May 2013, someone broke into Sandra Coke's home and stole her beloved cocker spaniel, Ginny. After that, in her spare time, Sandra ran down leads regarding her pet's whereabouts by posting missing dog flyers around her neighborhood. The posters offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to Ginny's return.
On Saturday, August 3, 2013 someone called Sandra with information about the dog. At eight-thirty the following evening she left her house to meet with the person who had called about Ginny. Before leaving the dwelling Sandra told her daughter that she'd be gone no more than thirty minutes. When she did not return to the house as promised her daughter reported her missing to the Oakland Police Department.
Doing some detective work of her own, the missing woman's daughter tracked her mother's two iPhones using a GPS application. One of the phones had been dumped along a highway near Richmond, California. The other device had been ditched in Oakland.
At seven-forty-five the evening following Sandra Coke's disappearance, Oakland police found her 2007 Mini Cooper convertible parked two miles from her home. In a quest for leads regarding her whereabouts officers removed bags of evidence from the Coke residence. Included among the items seized were two laptop computers.
A few days into the missing person's case investigators developed a suspect from Oakland named Randy Alana. The 56-year-old career criminal had been seen with Sandra Coke on the night she went missing. The two had dated twenty years earlier.
In June 2012 Alana was paroled from a fifteen-year prison sentence for armed robbery. He also had convictions for kidnapping and rape and was registered in California as a high-risk sex offender. The fact he and Sandra had been together on the night she went missing raised the possibility of murder.
For Randy Alana this was not the first time he became a suspect in a murder case. In September 1983 Alameda County, California prosecutor Russ Giutini charged the then 26-year-old criminal with using a hammer to beat to death Marilyn Pigott, a woman he had known since elementary school. Pigott had been murdered on August 13, 1983 in her North Oakland apartment.
In June 1984, while awaiting his murder trial in the Alameda County Jail, Alana and a fellow inmate named James Hodari Benson were accused of killing 40-year-old Al Ingram. The victim had been stabbed 93 times. Alana and Benson were members of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang. They killed Ingram under the false belief he was a police informant.
In the fall of 1984, the jury in the Marilyn Pigott murder trial deadlocked 9-3 in favor of convicting Alana. In his second trial the jury acquitted him because the witnesses who testified against him were "street types." In the Pigott case, Prosecutor Giutini managed to convict Alana of receiving stolen property in connection with his possession of the murder victim's ring.
In 1986, as a defendant in the Al Ingram murder trial, the jury couldn't reach an unanimous verdict on the issue of Alana's guilt. The judge declared a mistrial. James Hodari Benson was convicted of the murder in 1987. A year later, Alana pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the Benson case in return for a prison sentence of six years.
Police officers, on August 6, 2013, arrested Randy Alana on a parole violation and booked him into the Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin, California. The magistrate denied Alana bail.
Three days after Alana's arrest, a Contra County search and rescue team near Lagoons Valley Park, an unincorporated area in Solano County outside of Vacaville, California, found Sandra Coke's body in a creek bed. She had been strangled to death.
Former Alameda prosecutor Russ Giutini in speaking to a CBS reporter described Alana as a good-looking career criminal who was cunning and manipulative.
On August 18, 2013, in a jailhouse interview, Randy Alana told a reporter with The Oakland Tribune that he and Sandra Coke had been in love and had planned to get married. During the past several months, according to Alana, they had shared a house and regularly attended the Harmony Missionary Baptist Church. "I'm being treated like a suspect," he said.
In November 2013 an Alameda County prosecutor charged Alana with murder in connection with Sandra Coke's death. Al Wax, Alana's longtime criminal defense attorney, calling the case against his client "very weak and circumstantial," asked a judge in June 2014 to dismiss the case. The judge denied the defense motion to drop the charges. The case would progress to the trial stage.
The Randy Alana murder trial got underway on March 16, 2015 in the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland. Prosecutor Colleen McMahon, in her opening remarks to the jury, said that after the defendant stole Sandra Coke's dog Ginny on May 9, 2013, he tried to extort $1,000 from her for the pet's return. She didn't file charges against him and didn't pay him the ransom. She did, however, speak to his parole officer, accusing Alana of stealing her car, abducting her dog and stealing her daughter's expensive headphones. This discussion led to Alana's incarceration that spring and summer for violating his parole.
Infuriated that Coke had spoken to his parole agent, the defendant, on August 3, 2013, strangled Coke to death in the rear seat of her Mini Cooper parked behind the Nights Inn in North Oakland.
Defense attorney Al Wax, in his opening statement, said that without an eyewitness or a confession the prosecution's case was entirely circumstantial and insufficient.
Over the next four weeks prosecutor McMahon presented her evidence that included incriminating surveillance camera footage, cellphone data and records from the defendant's electronic ankle monitor. When police officers arrested him on August 6, 2013 in Dublin, California Alana was in possession of the murder victim's car keys and credit cards.
Two of the defendant's former cellmates at the Santa Rita County Jail took the stand for the prosecution and testified that following his arrest, he remarked that while he had assaulted many women in the past, things didn't look good for him this time.
Prosecutor McMahon, to establish motive, played a recording of a phone call from Alana to Sandra Coke made on May 9, 2013 from the Santa Rita County Jail. In that call Alana expressed his rage at her for getting him into trouble with his parole officer.
A 40-year-old homeless woman took the stand and said that just hours after Sandra Coke's murder, the defendant took her, in his "wife's" Mini Cooper, to a motel in Oakland where they smoked crack and she gave him oral sex.
Randy Alana took the stand on his own behalf on April 20, 2015. Under direct examination by defense attorney Wax the defendant gave an account of his activities on the day of Coke's murder, a story he was telling for the first time. According to Alana, on August 3, 2013 he and Sandra Coke in her Mini Cooper followed two people she believed would lead them to her dog Ginny. At the point of destination, a crack house in Richmond, California, he went inside to smoke dope while she remained outside talking to the unidentified people.
When Alana came out of the crack house Sandra asked him to take her car and bank card and withdraw cash from her bank account. When he returned to the crack house with the money she was gone, presumably murdered by these mysterious people.
On May 4, 2015, the last day of Alana's self-serving testimony, prosecutor McMahon, during a blistering cross-examination, poked several holes in the defendant's story. The next day, following the testimony of the defendant's 33-year-old daughter from a short-lived marriage in the 1980s, the defense rested. The judge excused the jury until May 18, 2015.
On May 20, 2015, after the closing arguments, the jury, following a two-hour deliberation found Randy Alana guilty as charged. He faced up to 96 years in prison.
The Alameda County judge, on June 18, 2015, before sentencing the murderer to 131 years in prison, called Alana a "black hole that sucks the life out of anything positive."
In May 2013, someone broke into Sandra Coke's home and stole her beloved cocker spaniel, Ginny. After that, in her spare time, Sandra ran down leads regarding her pet's whereabouts by posting missing dog flyers around her neighborhood. The posters offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to Ginny's return.
On Saturday, August 3, 2013 someone called Sandra with information about the dog. At eight-thirty the following evening she left her house to meet with the person who had called about Ginny. Before leaving the dwelling Sandra told her daughter that she'd be gone no more than thirty minutes. When she did not return to the house as promised her daughter reported her missing to the Oakland Police Department.
Doing some detective work of her own, the missing woman's daughter tracked her mother's two iPhones using a GPS application. One of the phones had been dumped along a highway near Richmond, California. The other device had been ditched in Oakland.
At seven-forty-five the evening following Sandra Coke's disappearance, Oakland police found her 2007 Mini Cooper convertible parked two miles from her home. In a quest for leads regarding her whereabouts officers removed bags of evidence from the Coke residence. Included among the items seized were two laptop computers.
A few days into the missing person's case investigators developed a suspect from Oakland named Randy Alana. The 56-year-old career criminal had been seen with Sandra Coke on the night she went missing. The two had dated twenty years earlier.
In June 2012 Alana was paroled from a fifteen-year prison sentence for armed robbery. He also had convictions for kidnapping and rape and was registered in California as a high-risk sex offender. The fact he and Sandra had been together on the night she went missing raised the possibility of murder.
For Randy Alana this was not the first time he became a suspect in a murder case. In September 1983 Alameda County, California prosecutor Russ Giutini charged the then 26-year-old criminal with using a hammer to beat to death Marilyn Pigott, a woman he had known since elementary school. Pigott had been murdered on August 13, 1983 in her North Oakland apartment.
In June 1984, while awaiting his murder trial in the Alameda County Jail, Alana and a fellow inmate named James Hodari Benson were accused of killing 40-year-old Al Ingram. The victim had been stabbed 93 times. Alana and Benson were members of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang. They killed Ingram under the false belief he was a police informant.
In the fall of 1984, the jury in the Marilyn Pigott murder trial deadlocked 9-3 in favor of convicting Alana. In his second trial the jury acquitted him because the witnesses who testified against him were "street types." In the Pigott case, Prosecutor Giutini managed to convict Alana of receiving stolen property in connection with his possession of the murder victim's ring.
In 1986, as a defendant in the Al Ingram murder trial, the jury couldn't reach an unanimous verdict on the issue of Alana's guilt. The judge declared a mistrial. James Hodari Benson was convicted of the murder in 1987. A year later, Alana pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the Benson case in return for a prison sentence of six years.
Police officers, on August 6, 2013, arrested Randy Alana on a parole violation and booked him into the Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin, California. The magistrate denied Alana bail.
Three days after Alana's arrest, a Contra County search and rescue team near Lagoons Valley Park, an unincorporated area in Solano County outside of Vacaville, California, found Sandra Coke's body in a creek bed. She had been strangled to death.
Former Alameda prosecutor Russ Giutini in speaking to a CBS reporter described Alana as a good-looking career criminal who was cunning and manipulative.
On August 18, 2013, in a jailhouse interview, Randy Alana told a reporter with The Oakland Tribune that he and Sandra Coke had been in love and had planned to get married. During the past several months, according to Alana, they had shared a house and regularly attended the Harmony Missionary Baptist Church. "I'm being treated like a suspect," he said.
In November 2013 an Alameda County prosecutor charged Alana with murder in connection with Sandra Coke's death. Al Wax, Alana's longtime criminal defense attorney, calling the case against his client "very weak and circumstantial," asked a judge in June 2014 to dismiss the case. The judge denied the defense motion to drop the charges. The case would progress to the trial stage.
The Randy Alana murder trial got underway on March 16, 2015 in the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland. Prosecutor Colleen McMahon, in her opening remarks to the jury, said that after the defendant stole Sandra Coke's dog Ginny on May 9, 2013, he tried to extort $1,000 from her for the pet's return. She didn't file charges against him and didn't pay him the ransom. She did, however, speak to his parole officer, accusing Alana of stealing her car, abducting her dog and stealing her daughter's expensive headphones. This discussion led to Alana's incarceration that spring and summer for violating his parole.
Infuriated that Coke had spoken to his parole agent, the defendant, on August 3, 2013, strangled Coke to death in the rear seat of her Mini Cooper parked behind the Nights Inn in North Oakland.
Defense attorney Al Wax, in his opening statement, said that without an eyewitness or a confession the prosecution's case was entirely circumstantial and insufficient.
Over the next four weeks prosecutor McMahon presented her evidence that included incriminating surveillance camera footage, cellphone data and records from the defendant's electronic ankle monitor. When police officers arrested him on August 6, 2013 in Dublin, California Alana was in possession of the murder victim's car keys and credit cards.
Two of the defendant's former cellmates at the Santa Rita County Jail took the stand for the prosecution and testified that following his arrest, he remarked that while he had assaulted many women in the past, things didn't look good for him this time.
Prosecutor McMahon, to establish motive, played a recording of a phone call from Alana to Sandra Coke made on May 9, 2013 from the Santa Rita County Jail. In that call Alana expressed his rage at her for getting him into trouble with his parole officer.
A 40-year-old homeless woman took the stand and said that just hours after Sandra Coke's murder, the defendant took her, in his "wife's" Mini Cooper, to a motel in Oakland where they smoked crack and she gave him oral sex.
Randy Alana took the stand on his own behalf on April 20, 2015. Under direct examination by defense attorney Wax the defendant gave an account of his activities on the day of Coke's murder, a story he was telling for the first time. According to Alana, on August 3, 2013 he and Sandra Coke in her Mini Cooper followed two people she believed would lead them to her dog Ginny. At the point of destination, a crack house in Richmond, California, he went inside to smoke dope while she remained outside talking to the unidentified people.
When Alana came out of the crack house Sandra asked him to take her car and bank card and withdraw cash from her bank account. When he returned to the crack house with the money she was gone, presumably murdered by these mysterious people.
On May 4, 2015, the last day of Alana's self-serving testimony, prosecutor McMahon, during a blistering cross-examination, poked several holes in the defendant's story. The next day, following the testimony of the defendant's 33-year-old daughter from a short-lived marriage in the 1980s, the defense rested. The judge excused the jury until May 18, 2015.
On May 20, 2015, after the closing arguments, the jury, following a two-hour deliberation found Randy Alana guilty as charged. He faced up to 96 years in prison.
The Alameda County judge, on June 18, 2015, before sentencing the murderer to 131 years in prison, called Alana a "black hole that sucks the life out of anything positive."
He is the father of that 15 year old daughter
ReplyDeleteHow do you know, DNA, were you there? speculation harms the innocent, which is what the 15 year old is! At 15, she should know who her father is.
DeleteWhat they failed to mention was that this dude also nearly beat to death a fellow inmate by the name of Troy Garcia in the Santa Rita Jail in '98 for which he was apparently never prosecuted for. I was there in the same add seg unit when it happened. What confuses me most about the Sandra Coke situation though is why would a woman of her professional stature ever get involved with an individual who was clearly a dangerous and brutal person? Just doesn't make sense. May she rest in peace...
ReplyDelete