By Kristin J. Bender
Oakland Tribune © Copyright 2013, Bay Area News Group
Posted: 08/17/2013 11:00:00 PM PDT | Updated: 45 min. ago
DUBLIN -- Slain federal criminal investigator Sandra Coke and career criminal Randy Alana were a loving couple who shared a home, attended church together the day she went missing and had plans to wed, Alana, the person of interest in her killing, claimed Saturday in a lengthy, exclusive jailhouse interview with this newspaper.
Speaking by telephone from behind a glass partition at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, where he is being held on a parole violation, Alana said the pair met while she investigated a capital murder case two decades ago and started a relationship. He repeatedly denied harming Coke who disappeared Aug. 4 from Oakland. Her body was found five days later in Vacaville.Alana paints a vastly different picture of the pair's relationship than Coke's family, who have said the two briefly dated more than 20 years ago. It also begs the question why Alana received a parole stay-away order, revealed at his Friday parole hearing in Oakland, that attempted to prevent him from seeing Coke. He is accused of violating his state prison parole by having "numerous contacts" with Coke."We recently talked about getting married," said Alana, addingthat her family and friends largely did not know of his criminal past. He was charged with two separate killings in the 1980s and was paroled from a 15-year robbery sentence in June 2012.
Coke's younger sister, Tanya Coke, disputes all of Alana's claims.
"This is a man with convictions for murder and kidnapping. He was the last person seen with my sister, but claims he has nothing to do with her disappearance and killing," she said in a written statement. "He is clearly someone who thinks nothing of lying and manipulating to serve his purposes. Why would we or anyone else believe what he has to say?"
Since his release last year, Alana admits to violating his parole at least five times, sending him back to Santa Rita where deputies said Saturday morning that Coke, 50, was a "regular visitor" of Alana.
During the interview, Alana said the pair occasionally attended Harmony Missionary Baptist Church in Oakland together on Sundays, including the morning of her disappearance. Interim Harmony pastor Germaine Anderson on Saturday confirmed both Coke and Alana were "visitors" not "members" of the church. He could not confirm that they attended the Aug. 4 morning worship and said he did not know them. more at link:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_23885790/we-were-going-marry-says-person-interest-sandra
bad news for sure
