Alisa “Lisa” Goods, 63, left an apartment near Maryland Parkway and Tropicana Avenue on August 8 to catch a bus and never came home. Days later, her family says texts began arriving from her phone number demanding bitcoin, deepening fears about what happened to the visiting grandmother somewhere along one of Las Vegas's busiest transit corridors.
Goods was staying with Roger John, a friend of nine years, while on her second trip to Las Vegas this year, according to KLAS 8 News Now. She did not have a car during her stay. John told the station he last spoke with Goods as she left his apartment, and when he went looking for her and returned two to three hours later, she was nowhere to be found.
John filed a missing persons report with Las Vegas Metro police on August 10, two days after Goods disappeared, per the same account. Official Metropolitan Police Department records confirm Goods was reported missing under case number LLV260800031980, last seen around 1:40 p.m. on August 8 near the 4900 block of South Maryland Parkway, wearing a blue denim jacket, black Adidas sweatpants and black sandals while walking with a cane, according to a post from Missing & Murdered: Seeking Justice on Facebook. She had reportedly planned to pick up iron pills at a CVS near Paradise Road and Harmon Avenue, according to the station's report.
Family Says Police Response Lagged
Alana Calloway, Goods's niece, told the station that Metro police did not treat her aunt's case as a priority. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has said it fields more than 600 missing persons reports each month across the valley, according to its own published guidelines, which also state there is no mandatory waiting period before a report can be filed. John said he plans to follow up with Metro police again this coming Monday.
Calloway said she has already reached out on her own, contacting local hospitals, the coroner's office and corrections facilities in search of any trace of her aunt. She also asked that anyone with information about what happened come forward and report what they saw. Meanwhile, John has been posting missing-person flyers around the Maryland and Tropicana area.
Strange Texts Fuel Family's Suspicion
On August 12, the Goods family began receiving text messages from Alisa's phone number asking for a bitcoin payment, the station reports. Calloway said she tried to verify that her aunt was actually the one texting, but the exchanges only raised more red flags: the sender claimed to be at a gas station, said a card was not working, and avoided a requested emergency phone call, all according to the station's account. The sender also referenced someone named Kelly, but Calloway said the family has nobody by that name.
Calloway passed the messages along to Goods's son, Keven Newton, who told the station he too received strange texts asking for money. The family says Goods's cell phone now appears disconnected. Under Nevada law, extortion attempts made via text or other electronic communication demanding money or cryptocurrency are a Category B felony, punishable by one to ten years in state prison and fines up to $10,000, according to the Las Vegas Defense Group.
A Pattern Seen Nationwide
The dynamic playing out in the Goods case mirrors a trend federal authorities have flagged elsewhere. The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice reported in 2026 that criminals frequently target families of missing people with fraudulent bitcoin or cryptocurrency ransom demands sent via text or internet-calling apps, according to FOX 10 Phoenix. Scammers in these cases often lift contact information straight from missing-person flyers or social media posts, then pose as the missing person or a captor to extract money. It remains unknown whether whoever is texting the Goods family is connected to Alisa's disappearance or is an opportunist exploiting it.
Nevada law requires police to immediately investigate and enter a missing adult's profile into the National Crime Information Center when the disappearance involves suspicious circumstances, under Nevada Revised Statutes Section 480.500. For endangered residents 60 or older, the state can also activate a Silver Alert when the person has vanished under suspicious or unexplained circumstances or has a medical condition that puts them at risk, per Nevada Department of Public Safety protocols.
A Familiar Route Amid Construction
Goods was last seen near the intersection of Maryland Parkway and Flamingo Road, a stretch served by RTC Southern Nevada's Route 109 bus line connecting Harry Reid International Airport, UNLV and downtown Las Vegas. Throughout August, RTC has been conducting heavy construction along the corridor for a $250 million Bus Rapid Transit project, with active lane shifts and bus stop changes underway near where Goods disappeared, according to project details published at marylandparkway.com.
Those who know Goods describe her in warm terms. Calloway said her aunt is welcoming, warm and loved by her family, adding that people simply gravitate toward her and that she lights up any room she enters. John, who has known Goods for nine years, described her as a very kind person. The family says it wants nothing more than for Goods to return home safely, and relatives are planning to travel to Las Vegas to help search for her.
Las Vegas has seen missing-adult cases escalate into homicide investigations before. Hoodline's coverage of the 2010 showgirl killing detailed how a missing performer's disappearance eventually turned into a homicide case after her remains were found in a vacant downtown house. No such outcome has been confirmed in Goods's case, and investigators have not publicly stated whether they believe foul play was involved.
