NORTHPORT – Three years after Jeremy Alex went missing, his family has increased to $20,000 the reward for information that might lead to his whereabouts.

Alex, 28, of Northport has not been seen since he ran into woods off the Pound Hill Road the evening of April 24, 2004.

Game wardens, volunteers with tracking dogs, sheriff’s deputies and state police searched the area a number of times over the following days and months, but to no avail. Although the disappearance was initially treated as a missing-person case, the investigation has been turned over to the state police, and Alex’s family believes he may have been murdered.

“I think we all believe that,” Alex’s father, Ted Alex, said Wednesday when reached by telephone at his workplace in Portsmouth, N.H. “I think Jeremy’s involvement with drugs is what led the state police to get involved.”

Waldo County Sheriff Scott Story confirmed that the matter had been turned over to the state police. State police Detective Scott Bryant, the lead officer on the case, was working on a murder investigation in Augusta on Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.

Alex said he had been in contact with both sheriff’s Detective Jason Trundy and Bryant over the past few months, and they have kept him advised of their work. He said detectives were keeping their findings to themselves at this point. “They are limited to what they tell me, and I’m happy with that,” he said.

Alex said he was not aware that his son was a user of heavy drugs, but after talking to his son’s then-girlfriend and some of his friends he learned the extent of his drug use during the time leading up to his disappearance. He said he knew his son used hard drugs but did not believe he was addicted. During the course of their investigation authorities found that Alex had used cocaine and heroin the day he disappeared, he said.

“I think that through his drug connections and what he was doing, somebody did something to him and knows something that would help solve this,” he said.

Authorities were alerted to Alex when a woman on Pound Hill Road called the sheriff’s office at 5:20 p.m. April 24 to report that a disoriented man had suddenly appeared in her backyard. The woman once worked at Belfast Area High School, which Alex attended a decade before, and they both recognized each other. Ted Alex said his son had money clasped in his hand and told the woman someone was after him. When the woman’s husband tried to restrain Alex, he broke free and ran into the woods.

When deputies responded to the call they found Alex’s car nearby but were unable to locate him. A search was mounted immediately, but nothing was found. After the public was notified that Alex was missing, a second witness recalled seeing a man who matched his description run across Route 1 near Northport Marine at around the same time. That area was also searched extensively, but searchers again came up empty. In all, three major searches were conducted, and not a trace of Alex could be found.

“I think we would have found him by now if he was in those woods,” his father said. “It isn’t like getting lost in Baxter State Park. There are roads all around there; people hunt and hike there, and there’s been nothing. Not a trace of clothing, nothing.”

Ted Alex, a past president of the Portsmouth Rotary Club, said the family has established The Jeremy Alex Fund in conjunction with the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation to provide grants and financial assistance to children and young adults in trouble. The fund has received contributions of $200,000 to date, and interest earned has been earmarked for the grants that will be distributed by Rotary.

Alex said grants have been awarded to the Healthy Kids Expo in nearby Rye, N.H., and to assist a troubled youth to join his Spanish class classmates on a trip to Costa Rica. He said it also would cover the expenses of sending six youths to Newport, R.I., this summer to sail as passengers on a tall ship making a port of call in Portsmouth.

“Peer pressure can put a kid in a different direction at any time. It could be a camping trip or a snowboard trip. You just never know what will happen,” Alex said. “We want to help kids.”