OAKLAND, Calif. — Family, friends and co-workers say they will continue scouring through neighborhoods looking for clues regarding the sudden disappearance of a Northern California woman who works with death row inmates in the federal public defender's office.
Sandra Coke has not been seen since leaving her home in Oakland on Sunday evening after reportedly telling her 15-year-old daughter she was meeting with someone who found her missing dog.
Coke said she would be back in 30 minutes. Her daughter called police when her mother did not return home that night.
Police said Wednesday that they are treating Coke's disappearance as a missing person's case as investigators searched her home for clues.
Her sister, however, believes there may be foul play involved.
"I do believe she may have been abducted," Tanya Coke told reporters on Wednesday.
As an investigator Sandra Coke, 50, probes capital cases that are appealed to federal court to ensure death sentences are fair, said Joseph Schlesinger, chief of the death penalty appeals unit in the Federal Public Defender's office in Sacramento.
On Wednesday, Schlesinger was among dozens of family, friends and current and former co-workers who canvassed and passed out fliers for more than three hours.