Federal investigator’s friends recall her as compassionate advocate

Friends and family of a California federal investigator who was found dead in Vacaville recalled her as fearless and compassionate advocate for defendants on death row.

Sandra Coke, 50, disappeared on Aug. 4. Several days later, authorities found her body near a park in Vacaville. Randy Alana, a registered sex offender, has been named a person of interest in the case. No details have been released about how Coke died.

“An advocate, a leader, and a friend, Sandra helped us all see the world for what it is while working in pursuit of a brighter vision for what it ought to be,” read a statement published Wednesday on a blog created to help find Coke.

Now, that blog serves as a tribute to Coke, and a way to help raise funds for Coke’s 15-year-old daughter. By late Wednesday afternoon, nearly $40,000 had been donated.

Described as compassionate for people from all walks of life, Coke spent much of her professional career seeking out evidence for the defense of death row inmates.

Coke could understand the problems of people who had been personally traumatized, said Joseph Schlesinger, who first met the investigator in the mid-1990’s at a death penalty appeals office where the pair worked.

“She had this amazing combination of compassion and kind of a hard-edged savviness,” Schlesinger said. “Her commitment, her intelligence, her dedication -- all shown through very clearly from the start.”

Coke continued to apply such skills in her subsequent work for the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, private law firms in California, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office and, most recently, the Federal Public Defender’s Office for California’s Eastern District, where Schlesinger now serves as the supervisor for the death penalty unit.

Coke’s job was neither easy nor glamorous, but she remained dedicated, said Andrew Love, who met Coke early in her career.

In a personal blog post, Love recalled how Coke thoroughly gathered records and carefully conducted interviews.

“She was committed to showing how every client, no matter what despicable acts they had committed, were human beings -- they were not monsters to be despised and disposed of,” Love wrote.

Love and Schlesinger both remarked the irony of Coke’s case -- that she has become the subject of a murder investigation herself.

“Sandra Coke, one of our own -- someone from my professional family -- has been killed by one of those people who we have long defended,” Love wrote. “For the first time in 25 years, my focus has shifted from perpetrator to victim.”

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Twitter: @emfoxhall

emily.foxhall@latimes.com