Maine State Police Reexamine Bizarre Cold Case Disappearance

…he had to run like hell. The bad men can’t get him. He has to make it back to Suzanne. What the hell is happening? Branches, leaves, foliage pummeled his face and body. Yet kept a tight grip on a wad of cash. He didn’t know the denomination… but Suzanne knew his habit.

He had to run like hell. RUN LIKE HELL!!

He stumbled… the breath being sucked out of his lungs by a superhuman strength pointed into a banshee’s scream rivaling the howls of the most powerful nor’easter. Primal, VISCERAL, with every cell and neuron: Suzanne. Suzanne… SUUUUUZANNE! SUZANNE!

He can’t let the bad men get Suzanne!! But which way was home? Gripping everywhere in the dense foliage of this part of Maine, he finally landed in the yard of someone’s home, cash in hand yelling for help.

A man ran out of the house, into the backyard, and steadied the man from the woods:

‘What’s wrong, son? What’s wrong?’

The man from the woods prostrated himself before the homeowner, imploring him to take the “bad men” away while offering him the wad of cash in his hand. The homeowner refused it and had his wife call 9–1–1…

This doesn’t even tip the scales in the bizarre tale that is the disappearance of Jeremy Alex.

Victimology

Jeremy Alex, 28 in 2004, was known as carefree, mellow, with a bright and exuberant presence by friends and family with his father Ted saying in a documentary that his son “had a bit of gypsy in his soul.” He traveled extensively through the United States on an odyssey following the Grateful Dead throughout North America.

Throughout that period, he supported himself by selling grilled cheese sandwiches out of his van. He also enjoyed chess and had a passion for environmental causes.

Jeremy lived with his biological mother in tiny Belfast, Maine most of the time. Belfast is a tiny hamlet sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean, some mountains, and Probscot Bay.

Still, his stepmother Susan called him “earthy” and said he had some issues growing up. Nevertheless, by most accounts, he was rapidly past his phase of wanderlust and looking to settle down with a like-minded woman.

He met her thanks to a mutual friend in Belfast. Suzanne and he were alike in almost every area. Further, his “straight edge” lifestyle — meaning he did not drink or smoke — was another thing she loved about him.

But that “straight edge” may be more forked than she thought…

The Investigation

Jeremy and Suzanne soon began making life plans together. These included a house in nearby Northport, Maine.

The day before Jeremy vanished, Ted and Susan drove up from Portsmouth, New Hampshire (a distance of almost 155 miles) for a happy belated birthday dinner with their son who turned 28 two weeks earlier. After, they returned home.

A call the next morning would change their lives.

Old Habits

The next morning Ted and Susan woke up to a call from Jeremy’s cell phone.

But it wasn’t Jeremy.

It was the Maine State Police calling on his phone. Officers found his van in a secluded spot near Northport. They saw the “dad” contact in his flip phone and thought to call it. Ted and Susan drove up immediately to join Susan.

As the trio was driving past the house Suzanne and Jeremy were moving into, they noticed something odd. The door was open. Somebody had been there, but nothing was out of place.

While at the residence, Suzanne flushed Jeremy’s stash down the toilet. His drug of choice was cocaine. He would use heroin occasionally as well. This could very well be the genesis of his increasingly rapid shifts in personality.

Jeremy developed paranoid persecutory delusions during this time. Suzanne did not know what to make of him telling her about “the bad men” coming to get him. Several friends of the couple felt the same way.

Suzanne decided that this was the time to tell Jeremy’s parents that he was no longer on the wagon. This soon became several dogged searches through the dense forests of the area. Nothing came up.

The Man in the Woods

April 24, 2004 — the day Jeremy disappeared — the man from the woods ran into the backyard of a local high school English teacher and her husband. She positively identified the man as her former student Jeremy Alex. Her husband went outside to help him.

Jeremy was ranting and raving, disheveled, and waving around a wad of cash. He sank to his knees as the homeowner approached, begging him — even offering to pay him — to get rid of “the bad men”. The man tried to help Jeremy, but he left before they could call 9–1–1.

Jeremy had a similar episode with Suzanne about two hours before running through the jungle and into someone’s yard. He also mentioned “the bad men” before running away from the couple’s house.

In October of 2004, a man fitting Jeremy’s description was seen in the woods near Owl Head, Maine — about 30 miles south of Belfast.

The Doppelganger

Investigators tried to talk to him into a local restaurant, but the man remained effectively catatonic.

When his case was finally sorted out, it turned out the man was NOT Jeremy Alex. The man missing in Owl Head was another man named Jeremy (not even kidding) who went off his meds and wandered into the woods.

What Happened?

It is very unclear what happened to Jeremy Alex in 2004. Was it a connection of his chasing him? Threatening him? Blackmailing him? It certainly seems to look a bit like the old cliché that just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

Did he have a psychotic break? Sadly, we may never know.

It certainly seems like he could’ve worked his way back to civilization if he were intoxicated on something and in the woods. Jeremy did have the skills to survive in the wilderness.

The Present Day

Maine State Police are wanting to remind the public at large about the Disappearance of Jeremy Alex, especially with that April 24th memorial date.

Investigators in the State Police Major Crime’s Unit request that you leave your tip here or call (207) 624–7143 or toll-free 1–800–452–4664.

Journalist and dogged student of all things forensic, Wess Haubrich, examines the nitty, gritty details you didn’t know about famous (and not so famous but equally weird) crimes and their unseen motivations. Thanks for reading!

You can also support the Real Monsters’ podcast Wess does to get even deeper into these cases. Find it wherever you get your podcasts or here:

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