Update: It's been confirmed that Lisa's car was found at Cooley's Landing Marina. There is a body inside the vehicle, but police will not confirm whose it is.
When Fort Lauderdale musician and piano teacher, Lisa "Noodles" Hayden-Gordon, was reported missing, her family, friends, and the South Florida music community quickly responded by launching an extensive search. They posted tirelessly on social media, created findnoodles.com, and distributed flyers around downtown Fort Lauderdale asking for any new information on her whereabouts. She was last seen around 1 a.m. on Saturday, January 24, 2015.
Teajay Smith, photographer and longtime friend, was hanging out with Noodles the night before she disappeared. "She came over to comfort me about some anxiety I was having. We talked for about three and half hours and may have talked about every love we'd ever had," she recalls, also saying that Noodles didn't appear to be distressed at the time and was saving her money for a summer road trip.
On Saturday, she ran into her again. Though Noodles had been sober for a period of time, she was drinking the night of her disappearance. That evening, she attended a Keller Williams concert at Revolution Live.
Smith bumped into Noodles at nearly half past midnight at the PoorHouse next door. They hung out and chatted for a bit. Smith thought it appeared Noodles needed a safe ride home, so she intended to stick with her.
But before the next band took the stage at just a few minutes past 1 a.m., Noodles walked away alone without a word, leaving Smith concerned.
After that, reports are conflicting. We were told she was last seen heading down the alley behind PoorHouse and Dicey Riley's with her keys in her hand at about 1:30 a.m. It looked like she was walking to her car. Another witness who supposedly spoke with police said she saw Noodles again at 2:05 a.m. in the bathroom, but won't speak to the media. However, the police's press release on the matter says she was last seen at 1:30 p.m.
"The next morning, I started texting and calling her. And I thought that I might have been overreacting and that she was fine," Smith shares, "I didn't get ahold of her so I went by her house. Monday evening, I called her sister Suzy [O'Leary of North Carolina.]"
The two first met in the 1990s during the annual camping event, Ray Conga Peace River trip. Noodles was one of those wacky and endearing characters, according to Smith, who wore costumes like fairy wings and antennae on her head. She has a huge affinity for glitter.
