The body of Alisa Goods, 63, has been found near Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, ending a nearly two-week search.
Goods, a Brooklyn grandmother and mother of five, was last seen on Aug. 8 when she left her friend Roger John’s apartment near the Las Vegas Strip to go shopping at a CVS pharmacy. Police responded to Terminal 1 around 1:45 a.m. Thursday after her body was discovered in the area. Investigators later located surveillance footage from the afternoon she disappeared showing a woman believed to be Goods near the airport.
“Our hearts are broken. We were notified that my aunt was found—unfortunately, not the way we wanted her to be. This is an unimaginable time. Words cannot describe the pain our family is experiencing right now,” her niece Alana Calloway said in a statement.
“We just want to thank the public for the outpouring of love, support, and prayers. We also want to thank the media for helping bring attention to this situation. This hurts so deeply. We are still trying to learn the details surrounding her death. We ask for continued prayers and privacy as we grieve.”
John, who police said was not a suspect, had known Goods for nine years and described her as “the nicest person you would meet.” He aided the search by pasting flyers featuring Goods’ face around the Maryland and Tropicana area where she was last seen. John told 8 News Now he last spoke to her when she left his apartment around 12:45 p.m. On Aug. 8.
“Last I saw her, she was going down the stairs. And I said, ‘OK, see you later,’ And that’s the last time I saw her. I went out after her, about 15 minutes after her. And I came back home about two, three hours later, and then she wasn’t home,” John said. “And I was like, ‘she should have been home already.’ I didn’t think much of it, because sometimes she’d go out and she’d shop, she stays out. And I kept texting and calling and texting and calling.”
Her family said Goods had recently undergone several surgical procedures on her legs, which would make it difficult for her to get far on foot. After her disappearance, they grew increasingly suspicious when Goods’ disconnected cell phone started sending messages asking for money, and eventually Bitcoin. Her daughter Kristin flew into town from New Jersey hoping to find her mother, even checking hospitals and morgues.
In the viral moment that deepened the mystery, Calloway described receiving suspicious texts from her aunt’s phone beginning Aug. 12. “I said, ‘Hey, could you call me back? Something happened to mommy. It’s an emergency.’ And I kind of went on and on trying to get the person to actually call me. But they kept putting it off and saying, ‘now my card’s not working,'” Calloway said. The person on the other end claimed to be having credit card issues at a gas station, which alarmed the family because Goods did not have a car in Las Vegas. “Then they wanted the Bitcoin. And then I said, ‘Well, hold on. Let me get Kelly to help.’ We have nobody in our family named Kelly,” Calloway continued. “That was alarming. Every time the person texts back, it just felt like my heart was in my stomach because I knew it wasn’t my aunt.”
Police have not yet divulged Goods’ cause of death or spoken about how she ended up at the airport, compounding her family’s angst. FOX5 Vegas reported that Goods was found in an embankment near the airport garage. Calloway had earlier expressed frustration with the police response, saying an officer told her Goods “did not meet the qualifications of a priority, meaning she didn’t have any sort of disability.”