One Dinghy From Murder

Dinghy November 16, 1961 a Greek freighter named Captain Theo was sailing along the Northwest Providence Channel which runs thru 2 large islands of the channel runs essentially east and west with the Gulf Stream and then Southern Florida to the west and the open Atlantic ocean to the east. The 2nd officer noticed a strange speck bobbing on the waves and notified the captian who steered the freighter toward the sighting to investigate. They were shocked when the speck turned out to be a small oblong raft with a child on it. As the freighter got closer they saw a young, blonde girl in a white cotton blouse, pink corduroy slacks feebly waving at them. The crew noted sharks were in the waters surrounding the child and yelled for her to stay put as they lowered a life raft, and a crew member went out to her. She was then carried on to the freighter. The child was severely sunburned & dehydrated and barely been able to speak. She was fading in and out of consciousness. She managed to tell the crew that she was 11-year-old Terry Jo Duperrault and the ship she had been on with her family had sank several days earlier. The captain notified the coast guard and Terry Jo was airlifted to a hospital in Miami and put in the ICU. The news dubbed her “The Sea Orphan” or “The Sea Waif”. 3 days earlier, on Monday, November 13th, a crew member of an oil tanker named the Gulf Lion saw something drifting towards them. As it got closer, he realized it was a man waving frantically from a dinghy and shouting "Help! I have a dead baby on board!" The crew pulled the man aboard the tanker along with the deceased body of a red-haired little girl in a life jacket. The man told them he was Julian Harvey, skipper of the Bluebelle. Harvey told them that at around 8:30 the night before his vessel was hit by a sudden, strong squall (a sudden violent gust of wind or a localized storm, especially one bringing rain, snow, or sleet). The squall had caused the Bluebelle to rapidly tip over and the main mast snapped and pierced the ship's hull. His wife had been injured and he separated her and the others aboard the ship when the mast fell. He attempted to retrieve a wire cutter from the cabin to clear the deck space, but a sudden fire broke out on board, and he was not able to rescue his wife or any other passengers. He was forced to abandon the ship on the dinghy. He then saw the body of 7-year-old Rene Duperrault float toward him. He grabbed the little girl and attempted to revive her but was unsuccessful. Julian Harvey was taken to Nassau in the Bahamas and questioned by the authorities. They were put off by his calm demeanor after such a traumatic ordeal. They also found it odd that he managed to have so many survival supplies with him on the dinghy, since he was forced to abandon the ship so quickly. But an autopsy showed that little Rene Duperrault had died from drowning. Julian was allowed to return to Miami where he would be interviewed by the U.S. Coast Guard 2 days later. He retold the story of the squall and suspected that the falling mast must have punctured the auxiliary gas tank which started a fire, making it impossible to rescue anyone else aboard the ship. He was questioned for 2 days. During the 2nd day of his interview, Julian was informed that Terry Jo Duperrault had been rescued the day before and that while she was in critical condition, she was improving. Julian excitedly said “OMG!” and then calmly added “Isn’t that wonderful”. Something about his tone was off. He was told an official investigation into the loss of the Bluebelle and her passengers was to be launched that day. Julian asked to be excused from further questions, claiming he was exhausted and asked to speak with his wife's family. His request was granted but I’m not sure if he spoke with them or not. Julian left the inquiry and drove to the Sandman Motel, checked in under the name John Monroe, and paid cash for a room. 2 hours later a maid came into his room and was scared when she found blood on the bedsheets. Then she realized she couldn’t open the bathroom door. She notified the manager who called police. They forced open the door and found Julian Harvey dead, having slashed his thigh, ankles, and jugular vein with a razor. He left a suicide note which was addressed to a close friend from his days in the military. But the note left no explanations or apologies. He requested that his friend take care of his 14-year-old son, Lance and that he requested to be buried at sea. He ended the note with "I got too tired and nervous. I couldn't stand it any longer." The next day Terry Jo was finally well enough to meet with investigators. BREAK***** 40-year-old Arthur Duperrault, his wife Jean who was 38 and their three children: Brian (14), Terry Jo (11), and René (7) were from Green Bay Wisconsin. Arthur was a successful optometrist. When he was younger and he served in World War II, he sailed in the Florida Keys and the Bahamas. It was his dream to take his wife and kids on a week-long family cruise to that area and the family saved for several years to make that dream come true. By the summer of 1961, the Duperrault family had saved enough money to and planned to sail that fall when the Wisconsin and get away from the cold weather. The plan was to spend a week living at sea aboard a chartered yacht, docking at several locations, and potentially extending the sabbatical longer if all went well. In early November 1961, they arrived in Fort Lauderdale and chartered a 60-foot sailboat named the Bluebelle, for $515 for a week. Arthur hired a well-known local yachtsman, who he had previously met, Julian Harvey to skipper the boat for $100 per day. Julian’s wife, a former stewardess and aspiring writer, Mary Dene Harvey, came along as the cook. Julian was 44 years old, and Mary Dean was 34, and was his SIXTH wife. The Bluebelle set sail on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 8th. Over the next 4 days the boat docked at several locations in the Bahamas. They purchased souvenirs and went snorkeling. On Sunday, November 12th, Arthur Duperrault and Julian Harvey visited the office of British district commissioner Roderick Pinder. Arthur told the commissioner quote: "This has been a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.” and "We'll be back before Christmas." That evening, Mary Dene served everyone chicken cacciatore and salad as they set sail back toward Florida. Around 9pm Terry Jo decided she was tired and wanted go to bed, while the rest of her family and the Harveys stayed up on the deck of the ship. Terry Jo went to sleep in a little cabin below deck in the back of the boat that she was sharing with her little sister, Rene. She told investigators that she was startled awake in the middle of the night by her brother, Brian, screaming “Help Daddy! Help!” followed by running and stomping from the deck above. And then there was silence. She was scared and confused, so she just sat there for a few minutes listening. When she didn’t hear any other noises, she decided to investigate. She climbed the stairs to go up on the deck and peeked out the hatch. She saw her mother and brother, laying in a pool of blood on the deck just outside the main cabin. She climbed out of the hatch and walked up onto the deck. Then Captain Harvey came out of nowhere carrying a bucket. He yelling “get back down there!”, hit her and shoved her back down the stairs. Terry Jo scrambled back to her sleeping cabin and hid. After about 15 minutes water started gushing into her little cabin. And it was dirty, oily smelling water. But Terry Jo was too scared to move. Then Captain Harvey appeared in her doorway carrying a rifle, possibly one her brother had brought on the trip. They just started quietly at each other for a few moments. Terry Jo didn’t dare move. Then the captain suddenly turned and went back up to the deck. Terry sat frozen and listening to hammering noises from above. Her cabin was filling up with water, it started coming up onto her mattress. Finally, she left the cabin and had to wade thru waist-deep water to get to the stairs. When she made it to the deck she saw that the ship’s dinghy and rubber life raft were now floating beside the boat. She yelled out, “is the ship sinking?” and Captain Harvey appeared behind her and yelled “yes” as he shoved the line to the dinghy into her hands and said, “hold this”. But Terry Jo was so startled she dropped the line and the dinghy started to drift away from the ship. Captain Harvey dove overboard, swam toward it and then disappeared into the dark. Terrified and alone above a sinking ship, Terry Jo’s survival instincts kicked in. She remembered seeing a cork life float attached to the top right side of the main cabin and had to work her way to the cabin was just barely above-water. She was able to untie it as the deck of the ship went under. Terry Jo half-scrawled, half-swam to the float and climbed into it, but one of its lines snagged onto the sinking ship. For a few seconds it started to go under, but then the line broke loose and it floated back on top of the water. The cork float was only 2ft wide by 5 ft long, like an oblong donut. The open center had wide netting across it. There was no way for her to sit in it or on it and be out of the water. She stayed quiet and huddled as low as possible. It was pitch black out and she had no idea where Captain Harvey was or if he would come back. She had no food or water, nothing to protect her from the cold. It started to rain. The next morning the sun came out and warmed her, but as the day went on, the blazing sun began to burn her skin. The cork float was beginning to disintegrate, and her legs and feet were exposed to parrot fish and their sharp teeth. But she managed to survive the day and that night. The next day was the same. By the 3rd day she had to balance herself on the outer ring of the float as the netting in the middle was starting to disintegrate. She drifted in and out of consciousness. Finally on the 4th day she awoke to the shadow of the freighter that eventually pulled her out of the water. She was alone at sea for 3 ½ days, about 82 hours. When Terry was finally interviewed, she informed investigators the Bluebelle was not on fire before it sank. She was then informed that Captain Harvey had been found 3 days before she was rescued along with the body of her little sister, Rene. The bodies of the rest of her family and Mary Dene Harvey were lost at sea. The formal investigation was conducted and revealed the events that led up to the fateful last night of the Bluebelle. Although Julian Harvey was a decorated World War II veteran and Korean War pilot it turned out he had difficulty holding a job for any length of time which led to serious financial problems. He and Mary Dene had only been married for 4 months. And shortly afterward he took a $20,000 double indemnity insurance policy out on her, which would pay double if she died accidentally. Julian Harvey had only been working for a month as the captain of the Bluebelle. The ships’s owner, Harold Pegg, hired him to take tourists on cruises in exchange for $300 a month and free accommodation onboard. It’s suspected that Julian Harvey planed to murder his wife at sea, then claim that she had vanished, and use the tourists aboard as witnesses. The Duperrault family were his first clients. As investigators dug into Julian Harvey's background, they found he had survived a 1949 car accident that had killed his 2nd wife and her mother. The car he was driving had gone off a bridge on a rainy night. Julian swam to safety, but the 2 women drown. He received an insurance settlement after the accident. A ship he sailed sunk in shallow water after running it into the submerged wreckage of another ship. Crew members reportedly warned him to steer clear, but he repeatedly navigated the vessel around the restricted area claiming he was trying to read the inscription on a buoy that marked the site. He received a large insurance settlement afterward. And other ship he sailed sunk under suspiciously circumstances of the coast of Cuba. Again he received an insurance settlement. The inquiry into the fate of Bluebelle concluded that a member of the Duperrault family either caught Julian Harvey in the act of the murdering of his wife or the disposing of her body. So he proceeded to kill the entire family as to not leave any witnesses. It’s thought that he retrieved little René's body from the ocean to add credibility to his story. Had he not committed suicide, Julian Harvey would have been prosecuted for the murder of his wife, Mary Dene Harvey, Arthur, Jean, Brian and Rene Duperrault, and the attempted murder of Terry Jo Duperrault. Terry Jo returned to Green Bay to live with her father's family She refused to get rid of the blouse and slacks she was wearing at the time of her rescue. She changed her first name to Tere. In the early 1960s trauma counseling didn’t really exist. No one really talked to her or asked her about what happened. Because of this, she did not speak publicly about the accident or her miraculous survival for more than 20 years. In In 2010, she released her memoir Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean and started doing TV interviews. She has no idea why Julian Harvey left her alive on the ship. She still lives in Wisconsin and is married with 3 children. Sources: Reader’s Digest article Orphaned on the Ocean: The Unbelievable Story of Terry Jo Duperrault All that’s interesting .com Wikipedia .com