Murder Gone Wrong

 

   Julian Harvey had a good war. Two good wars in fact, WWII and Korean. When he came home women wanted to marry him. Six did. But he was never able to hold a job for long and money was always a problem.

   By 1961 he was in Fort Lauderdale. A local business man had hired Harvey to captain his 60' sailboat Bluebelle on charters to the Bahamas. Harvey's new wife would come along as cook. Harvey's first clients were the Dupperault family of five from Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

   On November 8, the Bluebell left Fort Lauderdale for the 90 mile trip to the Bahamas. After visiting several spots in the islands, they headed back to Florida on the 12th. The middle child, Terry Jo, 11, turned in early that evening. Later that night she heard her older brother screaming for help. When she came up on deck she saw her mother and brother lying on the deck dead. 

   Terrified, she asked Captain Harvey what was happening. He pushed her below and told her to stay there. Terry Jo saw water rising in the cabin and returned to the deck. Harvey was holding a rifle. He looked at her then told her to hold onto a rope attached to the dingy. She was in such shock that she let the rope slip through her fingers.

   When Harvey returned he saw the dingy was floating away and dived in after it. He didn't return. As the boat continued to sink Terry Jo remembered a small cork raft on board. She untied it, threw it overboard, and swam to it as the Bluebell went down.

   For the next three days Terry Jo floated on the open sea without food, water, or protection from the sun. She had to sit upright in the 2 by 5 foot raft. She could see sharks swimming around her. Finally a Greek freighter spotted her and picked her up. She was dehydrated and soon lapsed into a coma. A helicopter picked her up and flew her to a hospital in Miami.

   Meanwhile, Julian Harvey had also been rescued and was back in Florida telling his version of events to the Coast Guard. His story was that a squall had dismantled the Bluebell. As the mast went down it punctured the hull which started a fire. He said he was barely able to get away in the dingy. He presumed the others drowned.

   When Harvey learned that Terry Jo had survived and would soon be able to talk, he committed suicide by opening his veins. He left a note saying he was tired and nervous. He asked a friend to look after his son and he requested burial at sea.

   The full investigation revealed that Harvey had recently taken out an insurance policy on his wife that would pay double if she died in an accident. The investigators theorized that while killing his wife, Harvey had been caught by one of his passengers. It was then necessary to kill everyone and sink the Bluebell. Terry Jo doesn't know why he didn't kill her. He probably figured she would drown when the boat sank.

    Several years earlier Harvey had driven a car with his second wife as passenger into a bayou. He swam away while his wife drowned. She was also insured for life. He had sunk two of his own boats earlier and collected the insurance money.

   Terry Jo was adopted into her aunt's family back in Green Bay. Psychological counseling was in a more primitive state back in the early Sixties. Her counselors kept focusing on the murder which she had not witnessed. Her real problem was the loss of her family. 

   But Terry Jo was a survivor. She married and had three children. She coauthored a book on her ordeal titled Alone. When she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, she was reunited with the captain of the Greek ship that had rescued her.  Opa Oprah! 

The Bluebelle, built in 1928 in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.