Bluebelle (ship)

Terry Jo Duperrault, immediately before her rescue by Captain Theo

The ship was chartered by optometrist Dr. Arthur Duperrault (41 years old) of Green Bay, Wisconsin, for a trip from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to The Bahamas, which departed on November 8, 1961.[2] Accompanying him were his wife Jean (38), and his three children: Brian (14), Terry Jo (11), and Renee (7). The ship was skippered by decorated World War II and Korean War pilot Julian Harvey (44), accompanied by his sixth wife, Mary Dene (34), whom he had married in July.

According to interviews Terry Jo gave to the U.S. Coast Guard, on November 12 the Bluebelle began its return journey to Fort Lauderdale. At some point during the day Terry Jo entered the lower cabin to rest, leaving her family, Harvey, and his wife on deck. Later that same night, Terry Jo was awakened by screams to discover that Harvey had killed his wife,[3] and stabbed Dr. Duperrault, Jean, and Brian to death.[2] Harvey shoved her below deck, before he scuttled the sailboat and prepared to leave in a dinghy. When Harvey was later picked up by the tanker Gulf Lion, the drowned body of Renee was discovered in the dinghy.[4]

Terry Jo was able to untie a 2 by 5 foot (0.6 m × 1.5 m) cork float and launch herself just as the ship sank. After drifting for four days without food or water, and near death, Terry Jo was rescued in the Northwest Providence Channel by the Greek freighter Captain Theo,[3][5] A photograph by a crewman circulated on newspaper front pages globally.

Harvey had been picked up three days earlier in the dinghy along with Renee's dead body.[2][6] He told United States Coast Guard investigators that a squall had brought down the Bluebelle's masts, holding the ship's hull, rupturing the auxiliary gas tank, and starting a fire.[2][3] He claimed he had found Renee floating in the water and tried unsuccessfully to revive her. (An autopsy showed that she had died of drowning.) After Harvey was informed of Terry Jo's rescue, he checked into a motel under an assumed name and committed suicide with a razor blade.[1][3]

It is believed Harvey planned to kill his wife to collect on her $20,000 double indemnity insurance policy but was observed by Dr. Duperrault, and then proceeded to kill him, his wife, and two of his children, who may have witnessed his murder.[1][6] It was later found that Harvey had survived a car accident that claimed another of his six wives and her mother, and that his yacht Torbatross and his powerboat Valiant had sunk under suspicious circumstances, yielding large insurance settlements.[3][7]

Mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner, among others, wondered why Harvey did not kill Terry Jo. Gardner speculated that Harvey may have wanted to be caught and punished.[3] Survival psychologist Richard Logan theorized that Harvey had intended to kill her, but when she accidentally dropped the rope connected to his dinghy, he was forced to dive overboard in order to prevent its floating away without him, and thus left her alive on the sinking ship.[8] Many years later, she stated in a television interview with Matt Lauer, "I think he probably thought I would go down with the ship."[5]

• In Charles Williams' novel Dead Calm (1963), a couple rescues a man named Hughie, who is escaping a sinking ship in a dinghy, only to learn that he intentionally scuttled the boat after murdering a woman, leaving other passengers to die. The book's film adaptation even more closely mirrors the Bluebelle case, with Hughie murdering all of the boat's occupants before escaping.
• John D. MacDonald's novel The Last One Left (1967) was inspired by the Bluebelle murder case.[9] Anthony Boucher in The New York Times selected The Last One Left as the best mystery novel published that year.
• In May 2010, Terry Jo Duperrault (now known as Tere Jo Duperrault Fassbender) co-wrote with Richard Logan a memoir titled Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean, which covers both the Bluebelle story and her life since then. The book sheds some new light on Harvey's character and on the events of the night of the murders, thanks in part to Duperrault's willingness to undergo a sodium amytal injection to aid her recall.[8]