The relentless tropical sun beats down on Terry Jo’s parched, salt encrusted skin;
there’s no relief. Most of the time she keeps her eyes closed, it’s too bright,
the glinting waves make her dizzy and the salt water stings. It’s been 4 days since
the Bluebelle, the sailboat she had been aboard with her family, sank.
Terry Jo drifts in and out of consciousness, listlessly reclining on a flimsy 3 foot (.9
meter) oblong cork raft as it bobs on the pitching waves. The tiny raft wasn’t designed
for prolonged usage; some of the rope webbing has given way, it’s beginning to disintegrate.
Terry Jo hallucinates; a great big rumbling whale is looming over her. Suddenly the whale
turns into a solid black wall and amazed faces stare down. The crew of a Greek Freighter,
the Captain Theo, are shocked to spot a young girl adrift in a raft. One of the sailors
takes an iconic photograph of Terry Jo perched on her tiny raft in the huge ocean.
The crew quickly gets her aboard. Terry Jo tells them that she had been aboard the Bluebelle,
her name and that she is the sole survivor before losing consciousness. Just in the nick
of time, Terry Jo has been rescued from death. Soon she would reveal the devastating truth
of what happened aboard the Bluebelle.
Arthur Duperrault, a prominent optometrist from Green Bay, Wisconsin fondly remembered
serving in the navy. He dreamed of visiting the tropics and living on a sailboat for a
year with his family. In the fall of 1961 he set out to make his dream a reality. The
Duperrault family made up of Arthur, his wife Jean and their 3 children--14 year old Brian,
11 year old Terry Jo and 7 year old René, caravanned from the Midwest down to Florida.
The Duperraults rented the Bluebelle, a 60 foot (18 m) ketch or two masted sailboat,
and hired skipper Julian Harvey. Harvey, a retired Air Force vet brought along his wife
of a few months, Mary, a retired flight attendant and aspiring writer. She would act as the
cook on the trip.
On November 6, 1961 the Bluebelle shoved off from Fort Lauderdale; the plan was to spend
the next week sailing 200 miles (322 km) to the Bahamas and back. The trip was a trial
run to see if the family enjoyed living at sea.
The Duperraults, along with the Harveys, had a lovely time sailing to the Bahamas. The
family learned to spearfish and snorkel. In fact, when leaving the town of Sandy Point
on the Bahama island of Great Abaco, Dr. Duperrault told the village commissioner how much he
had enjoyed visiting the area and that he was going to build a winter home there. Less
than 24 hours later, Dr. Duperrault was dead.
On Thursday November 16, Lieutenant Murdock of the Coast Guard convenes a routine investigation
into the loss of the Bluebelle. The lone survivor, Captain Harvey is placed under oath and recounts
the tragic tale of the Bluebelle while Murdock takes notes. Harvey’s demeanor is very anxious,
but Murdock chalks that up to Harvey losing his wife and the deaths of the other passengers.
Harvey tells Murdock that the Bluebelle was on a return trip to Fort Lauderale when a
sudden squall violently blew down the main mast. The mast crashed hard and put a large
hole in the hull. Even worse, the weight of the falling mast pulled down the mizzenmast
which fell on the cockpit which was over the engine room. The severe damage caused the
gas lines in the engine room to rupture and the boat burst into flames as it sank. Most
of the passengers had been in the cockpit when the accident happened and were severely
injured and caught in the tangled rigging. Harvery alone had managed to launch the dinghy
and raft before diving overboard to escape. One or two passengers had jumped overboard
and he had searched for them to no avail. Eventually Harvey found the body of René
floating face down in the water. He had tried to resuscitate her, but couldn’t. He towed
her body in the raft. Two days after the sinking, he was picked up by an oil tanker, the Gulf
Lion.
Something about Harvey’s story seems off, but Murdock can’t quite put his finger on
it. It would be unusual for a falling mast to do the extensive damage that Harvey described.
However, Murdock had no reason to think Harvey was lying. Then again, upon Harvey’s rescue
the Coast Guard had launched an extensive air and sea search. They had spent a few days
searching over 5,000 square miles (12, 949 square km) for survivors and the remains of
the Bluebelle, but strangely, they found nothing, not even a trace of debris from the boat.
Things get weird when Murdock asks Harvey a few followup questions including ‘why
didn’t he fire any of the flares that were in the emergency kit in the dinghy?’ Harvey
said that the flares were in the bottom of the kit and he didn’t think to use them.
Hmm. An experienced skipper of many years didn’t think to look for and use flares
during an emergency? Some of Harvey’s other answers to Murdock’s questions are also
illogical or puzzling.
Harvey’s just finished his testimony when Captain Barber, another officer working on
the Bluebelle investigation rushes into the room with amazing news--There’s another
survivor of the Bluebelle tragedy! Terry Jo Duperrault has been rescued by a freighter
and is enroute to a Miami hospital via Coast Guard helicopter.
Harvey comments on the good news, but seems a little dazed. He leaves the inquiry, declining
to stay and hear testimony from the owner of the Bluebelle who had rented it to the
Duperraults. The Coast Guard officers go with their gut feelings and call the Miami Police
to station a guard outside Terry Jo’s hospital room when she arrives.
At Mercy Hospital, Terry Jo’s examined and found to be a coma. Her body has been pushed
to its limit. Doctors prescribe a course of rest and rehydration for her. If she pulls
through, it will be a few days before she’s in a state to be questioned.
On November 17, the day after Terry Jo’s rescue, a maid at the Sandman Motel in Miami
discovers Harvey’s body when she goes to tidy his room. The night before he had checked
in under a fake name and violently committed suicide by slashing several veins.
Terry Jo responds to the treatment and quickly bounces back. The doctors and authorities
keep her sequestered--she doesn’t know that Harvey also survived the sinking, nor is she
told of his gruesome death. On November 20th, the fourth day after her rescue she’s well
enough to tell her tale to Lieutenant Murdock and Captain Barber.
The first night of the return trip, a tired Terry Jo retreats to the room she shared with
her sister. However, it’s a clear, calm night, her parents and siblings stay upstairs,
on deck in the cockpit. Around 11 pm, Terry Jo’s jolted awake by loud screams. Her brother
Brian’s screaming for their dad to help him. She also hears running and stomping footsteps.
Then there’s silence.
Terry Jo lies wide awake, frozen with fear. After about 10 minutes she gets out of bed
and creeps out of her cabin. She goes into the main cabin. She sees her mother and brother
sprawled on the floor, dead, a pool of blood nearby.
Fearfully Terry Jo inches up the stairs and peeks out of the hatch. On the deck, she sees
more blood and something that might have been a knife. Terry Jo stands upright to get a
better look. Harvey comes rushing at her. Terry Jo starts to ask ‘what happened?’,
but Harvey hits her and shoves her down the stairs, yelling at her to ‘get back down
there!’
Terrified, Terry Jo tries not to look at the corpses of her mother and brother as she goes
down the stairs, out of the main cabin and returns to her room. She huddles in a ball
on her bed, shivering. She doesn’t know what to do. She hears water sloshing and wonders
if Harvey is washing the blood off the deck. After a little while, oily bilge water begins
to flood into her room.
Suddenly Harvey appears in the doorway. It’s dim, Terry Jo can’t see the expression on
his face, but he’s staring at her. He has something in his hands...it might be her brother’s
rifle. Terry Jo freezes, scarcely daring to breathe. After a long agonizing moment, Harvey
walks away and goes upstairs. Terry Jo stays where she is paralyzed with fear until the
water grows high enough that it crests her bed. The Bluebelle is sinking.
Terry Jo wades through the waist deep water, trying to avoid seeing the corpses as she
goes into the main cabin and up the stairs. She climbs on deck to see that the wooden
dinghy and life raft have been launched and are floating besides the Bluebelle. Confused,
Terry Jo askes Harvey if the ship was sinking? Harvey yells at her that it is.
He thrusts a line into her hand and tells her to hold it before walking off to another
part of the deck. Terry Jo, still numb with shock over all that’s happened, can’t
hold on, the line slips through her fingers.
Harvey comes back and sees that she dropped the line. It was for the dinghy which has
now drifted away from the ship. He dives overboard and swims for the boat. Terry Jo can’t see
whether he reaches it or not--she has a bigger problem on her hands. Waves are beginning
to wash over the deck.
Terry Jo suddenly remembers the small life float kept lashed on deck. She scrambles over
to it and manages to untie the four half-hitches securing it. Wading, she shoves the life raft
over the downed rigging, across the deck and then over a rail into open water. Just in
time--the Bluebelle plunges down. A line from the float snags on the sinking ktech and for
a heartbeat Terry Jo and the float are yanked underwater. Thankfully, somehow the line gets
free; Terry Jo and the float pop back up on the surface.
Terry Jo spends hours crouching in the float, terrified that Harvey is going to come after
her. She’s still numb with shock and quickly grows cold in her thin white blouse and pink
petal pushers. The float is oval with a canvas covered cork rim and rope webbing in the center.
Sitting in the webbing means that Terry Jo’s lower half stays submerged in the water, however
that feels good, since the water is warmer than the air.
Gradually as the stars come out, making for an incredible night’s sky, Terry Jo’s
fears ease. She wonders what happened to her father and sister. She prays to God and asks
for protection for her father, sister and herself.
The next morning dawns bright, Terry Jo can finally see, although not far since she’s
so low in the water. There is nothing but ocean surrounding her. At first the warmth
of the sun feels good, but as the day wears on the sunlight becomes brutal. Sitting in
the webbing, she submerges as much of herself as she can in the cool water. Some of the
rope snaps. The float wasn’t designed for sitting in, but rather holding on to. Parrotfish
swim into the raft, pecking at her. Terry Jo swats at them, but doesn’t want to make
a huge stir and attract larger, more dangerous sea creatures.
By mid afternoon Terry Jo’s skin has tightened due to the salt and sun. Her tongue is beginning
to swell. She needs water. After some trial and error Terry Jo figures out the best way
to balance herself on the float to minimize it falling apart and falling off of it.
For the next 3 days Tery Jo battles the sun, thirst and nipping parrot fish. She sees a
plane fly low over the ocean and waves at it, tragically it circles, doesn’t see her
and goes on. She begins to hallucinate and sees islands. She paddles madly towards them,
only to have them disappear. By the time the Captain Theo rescues her, Terry Jo’s severely
dehydrated, badly sunburned and not far from death.
The Coast Guard had already started checking into Harvey’s background, but Terry Jo’s
story spurs their investigation. As it turns out Harvey had been in a few questionable
boating accidents before. On more than one occasion, he’d walked away with insurance
money. Also unbeknownst to her, poor Mary was Harvey’s 6th wife. His third wife had
died in a mysterious car crash where Harvey had collected a life insurance policy after
her death. Furthermore, it was discovered that Harvey had taken out a $20,000 life insurance
policy with himself as the beneficiary on Mary shortly before the voyage of the Bluebelle.
The policy had an accidental death double-indemnity clause that meant a $40,000 payout--or upwards
of $340,000 in today’s money.
Authorities suspected that Harvey planned to kill Mary. Probably stab her, weigh down
her body and toss her overboard. The next morning she’d be discovered missing and
Harvey could claim that Mary somehow accidently fell over. But when Harvey attacked, Mary
fought back.
Hearing a commotion, Dr. Duperrault rushed in to help. Harvey kills both Dr. Duperrault
and Mary. Harvey realizes that he has to kill all the witnesses, sink the boat and get away.
He quickly murders Jean and Brian.
Though an autopsy confirms that René drowned, it’s not certain at exactly what point.
Did Harvey drown her? Or did she drown when the ship went down and Harvey just picked
up her body to lend credence to his story? However, Terry Jo didn’t see her sister
or father at all on that horrible night, chances are they were already dead.
There was a lot of speculation as to why Harvey didn’t kill Terry Jo. Some theorize that
he secretly wanted to be caught. Others think that he assumed that she’d drown when the
boat sank.
Terry Jo returned to Wiscoson and moved in with her aunt, uncle and cousins. As much
as possible, they tried to give her a normal upbringing, shielding her from the press who
was fascinated by her tragic story. Her extended family doesn’t encourage her to talk about
what happened aboard the Bluebelle. At that time, it was thought the best way to cope
was to bury trauma and not speak of it. So for nearly 30 years she doesn’t.
Finally in 1999 Tere as she’s now called, worked through her memories with a psychiatrist.
She even did an interview while being treated with sodium amytal, better known as ‘truth
serum’ to make sure she wasn’t misremembering anything and gain new insight. Ultimately,
Terry Jo ended up co-authoring a book with her psychiatrist about
her experience.