LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Alisa Goods’ family is still searching for answers about how the 63-year-old grandmother from New York ended up dead near Terminal 1 at Harry Reid International Airport, even after learning last week where she was found.
“I need them to tell me where my aunt is and what happened to her,” said Alana Calloway, Goods’ niece to News 3 last week before Goods was found.
Law enforcement is still investigating what happened to Goods. Questions also remain about how she got to the airport after she was last believed to have been at the CVS pharmacy at Harmon and Paradise.
From the CVS parking lot to Terminal 1, the trip is about a five-minute drive, but more closely aligned with a 20-minute or more walk. The route is flat until reaching the Harry Reid sign at Tropicana, where it becomes a brief uphill ascent.
Police have said surveillance video shows a woman falling down an embankment, getting back up and then collapsing on Aug. 8. Metro did not respond to an interview request.
Attorney Kristopher Milicevic said Goods was “clearly from out of town” and that “New York is not the same as Las Vegas in so far as that this is not a very walkable city.” He said there is extensive surveillance coverage in that area that could help investigators piece together what happened.
“There is a lot of surveillance coverage in that part of town so hopefully law enforcement will be able to go backwards and sort of put these pieces together,” Milicevic said.
Another question investigators and the family are trying to sort out is whether Goods lost her phone. Former FBI agent Greg Rogers said, “There are some questions there that need to be answered.”
Goods’ family began receiving text messages from Goods’ old phone. Goods’ son also received a call from a phone supposedly belonging to Goods, with a voice on the other line that he said did not sound like her.
Metro told News 3 directly in a phone call that those attempts to make contact did not come from Goods’ phone and were instead spoofed. The family, meanwhile, said Goods has two phones.
“It is highly likely that it was spoofed but not necessarily,” Rogers said. “There is still some issue about who was making those texts from her phone to her family members and those. That is still something that needs to be looked into in a little more detail.”
The case has also raised questions about Metro’s resources for missing persons investigations. Goods’ daughter, Kristen Goods, said the family was told her mother was not considered a priority.
“We were told on more than one instance that she was not a priority,” Kristen Goods said. “If she had no mental health issues or had no debilitating issues that would make her an extreme case.”
Recent data suggests Metro receives about 683 missing persons reports each month. Rogers said missing persons units are typically small and must prioritize cases.
“Missing persons squads on police departments are usually, relatively small. They do work those cases but because there are so many, they prioritize them,” Rogers said. “So when they come in, certain cases go to the top of the stack, other ones go down in the middle. And if you are down in the middle or the bottom, you are not getting looked at really strenuously.”
Milicevic also said not every case warrants a press conference, arguing it can create problems for investigators.
“One of the reasons that Metro does not do press conferences in these kinds of cases, especially where there are no red flags, is they do not want strange people coming out of the woodwork and sending in false leads,” Milicevic said.
If you have information on the case, the family is urging people to contact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.