The search for a 63-year-old New York grandmother who disappeared while visiting Las Vegas has ended in tragedy after authorities found her body near Harry Reid International Airport.
Alisa Goods, a grandmother of five, was reported missing Aug. 10, two days after she was last seen leaving the apartment of a longtime friend in the Las Vegas area. Her family had spent nearly two weeks desperately searching for answers before authorities identified her body.
Goods' death has left her relatives struggling to understand what happened during the hours after she disappeared. Her family had also received strange messages from her cellphone that appeared to request money and Bitcoin, adding another unsettling element to the case.
Body discovered near airport
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police responded early Thursday after receiving a report of a deceased woman in a drainage-ditch area near Wayne Newton Boulevard and the Terminal 1 parking garage at Harry Reid International Airport.
Officers located the woman and later identified her as Goods. She was pronounced dead at the scene, according to local reporting cited by Fox News.
Goods' niece, Alana Calloway, confirmed the family's devastating news.
“Our hearts are broken,” Calloway said in a statement, adding that the family was still trying to learn the circumstances surrounding Goods' death and asking for privacy while they grieved.
The discovery brought an end to an increasingly desperate search that had involved family members traveling from the East Coast to Nevada and checking hospitals and morgues for information about Goods.
Surveillance footage provides a critical clue
Investigators reviewing surveillance footage reportedly found footage showing Goods on Aug. 8, the same day she disappeared.
According to KTNV, the video appeared to show Goods falling down an embankment, getting back up and then collapsing. The footage reportedly showed no further movement afterward.
Additional surveillance footage reportedly showed a woman believed to be Goods near the airport later that afternoon.
Those recordings could prove important as investigators reconstruct her final movements and determine how she ended up near the airport.
The surveillance evidence also provides a potentially significant timeline for investigators because it places Goods in the area where her body was eventually discovered on the day she disappeared.
She had planned a short shopping trip
Goods had been staying with her longtime friend Roger John while visiting Las Vegas.
John told KLAS-TV that Goods left his apartment at approximately 12:45 p.m. on Aug. 8. She reportedly planned to take a bus to a nearby CVS to purchase iron pills.
“Last I saw her, she was going down the stairs,” John told the station. “And I said, ‘OK, see you later.’ And that's the last time I saw her.”
John initially did not believe something was seriously wrong because Goods sometimes spent several hours shopping.
When she did not return, however, he began calling and texting her and eventually contacted her family.
Her relatives said the disappearance was completely out of character.
Mysterious messages deepened the mystery
The case took an unexpected turn after Goods disappeared when her family began receiving messages from her cellphone.
The messages reportedly began Aug. 12, four days after she was last seen. According to her family, the sender asked for gas money and later requested Bitcoin.
Those requests immediately raised questions.
Goods did not drive, and her family knew she did not have a car in Las Vegas. That made a request for gasoline particularly suspicious.
“I said, ‘What do you need gas for? The car?’ My aunt does not drive. There is no car,” Calloway previously told CBS News.
The unusual messages fueled fears that Goods might have been kidnapped or that someone else had gained access to her phone.
However, authorities have not publicly established who sent the messages or whether they were connected to Goods' death.
Family traveled across the country to search
As days passed without an explanation, Goods' daughter, Kristen, traveled from New Jersey to Las Vegas to help search for her mother.
The family checked hospitals and morgues and appealed publicly for information.
Before Goods was found, her relatives expressed frustration over the lack of answers and the difficulty of tracking her movements in a busy city filled with surveillance cameras.
Local reports said Goods had made previous visits to Las Vegas and was staying with a friend she had known for roughly two decades. Her family said the friend was not considered a suspect and had been cleared by police.
That detail became important as investigators attempted to establish Goods' final known movements without prematurely identifying a suspect.
Cause of death remains unclear
Despite the discovery of Goods' body and the existence of surveillance footage, important questions remain unanswered.
Authorities have not publicly released a definitive cause or manner of death in the reporting available so far.
The footage showing Goods falling down an embankment and later collapsing could become central to determining whether her death was the result of an accident, a medical emergency or another circumstance.
The mysterious cellphone messages add another unresolved element.
At this stage, there is no publicly established evidence showing that the Bitcoin messages caused or were directly connected to Goods' death. They remain part of the broader mystery surrounding her disappearance.
A family left with unanswered questions
For Goods' relatives, the discovery provides certainty about what happened to their loved one but not necessarily the answers they were seeking.
The family had hoped to find Goods alive after she vanished from the Las Vegas area. Instead, they received confirmation that she had died near the airport.
Calloway said the family is still trying to learn the details surrounding the death and asked the public to continue respecting their privacy as they mourn.
Las Vegas police are expected to continue examining surveillance footage, phone activity and other evidence as they work to establish a complete timeline.
For now, the tragic case of Alisa Goods remains marked by a series of unanswered questions: why she left her friend's apartment, what happened during her journey, why messages seeking money and Bitcoin were sent from her phone and what ultimately caused her death.
What began as a missing-person search has now become an investigation into the final hours of a grandmother whose family is still waiting for a complete explanation.
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