Speaker 1: Are you with me on this? We all a dream
Speaker 1: about the great escape, the fabulous adventure, right, But what
Speaker 1: happens when that adventure leads to the murder of you
Speaker 1: and your young family with one lone survivor. I'm Patti Steele,
Speaker 1: an eleven year old girl lost at sea after an
Speaker 1: amazing escape. That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back.
Speaker 1: Come on. How often have you day dreamed about taking
Speaker 1: a break from everything and going on the adventure of
Speaker 1: a lifetime. Maybe you thought about it when you were
Speaker 1: a kid and totally carefree, or maybe you thought, if
Speaker 1: I ever get to a place where I have the
Speaker 1: time and money, I'm going to pack up the family
Speaker 1: and just escape for a little while. For a lot
Speaker 1: of us, that dream includes an island in the crystal
Speaker 1: clear waters of I don't know, the South Pacific, or
Speaker 1: maybe the Caribbean. That was the motivation behind a trip
Speaker 1: Arthur Dupero planned for his family back in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: Arthur was an optometrist from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and he'd
Speaker 1: been dreaming of renting a big sailboat and taking the
Speaker 1: family on a sea adventure. He'd fallen in love with
Speaker 1: clear tropical Oceans while serving on a ship during World
Speaker 1: War II. Now it was time to share this with
Speaker 1: his family. He decides they'll sail around the Bahamian Islands
Speaker 1: and he rents a sixty foot long, two masted sailboat.
Speaker 1: To captain the ship, Arthur hires Julian Harvey, a former
Speaker 1: Air Force fighter pilot and experienced sailor. Julian's wife will
Speaker 1: help crew the boat and do the cooking while they're
Speaker 1: on board. The Dupero family, including Arthur's wife Jean, their
Speaker 1: fourteen year old son Brian, and daughters Terry, Joe eleven,
Speaker 1: and Renee seven, were planning to spend a week trying
Speaker 1: out life at sea, and if they liked it, they
Speaker 1: were considering taking a full on sabbatical and extending the
Speaker 1: adventure for a much longer period. That was the dream.
Speaker 1: They arrive in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to board the Blue
Speaker 1: Bell that's their ship, and meet Captain Harvey and his
Speaker 1: wife Dean. On Wednesday morning, November eighth, nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: The Duperos set sail for the seven hundred islands surrounded
Speaker 1: by the crystal blue Caribbean Sea that make up the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: Over the next four days, the Blue Bell takes her
Speaker 1: passengers toward the tiny island chain of Biminy, then on
Speaker 1: to Sandy Point, a small village on the tip of
Speaker 1: Great Abaco Island. Along the way, they explored deserted beaches
Speaker 1: and collect shells. Sounds pretty perfect, and it was until
Speaker 1: it wasn't. On Sunday, Arthur Dupero and the Harveys stop
Speaker 1: by the office of Roderick Pinder, he's the village commissioner.
Speaker 1: As they get ready for the return trip to the US.
Speaker 1: Arthur tells Pinder, this has been a once in a
Speaker 1: lifetime vacation. We'll be back before Christmas. That night, Dean
Speaker 1: made chicken, catch atry and salad for dinner. It was
Speaker 1: the last meal ever served on the Bluebell. Now it's
Speaker 1: around nine pm, the sea is calm and the moon
Speaker 1: is bright. Eleven year old Terry Joe heads down to
Speaker 1: go to bed in her small cabin at the back
Speaker 1: of the boat. Usually her seven year old sister would
Speaker 1: be with her, but the rest of the family had
Speaker 1: stayed up on the main deck to enjoy the night
Speaker 1: air and watch the captain sail the boat. Suddenly, hours later,
Speaker 1: Terry Joe wakes up when she hears her brother yell help, Daddy, Help.
Speaker 1: Then she hears running and stomping noises. Then everything goes silent.
Speaker 1: Terry Joe lays shivering in her bed. She's terrified. Then,
Speaker 1: after about five minutes or so, she slowly slips out
Speaker 1: of her cabin. She sees her mother and brother lying
Speaker 1: in a pool of blood in the main cabin, and
Speaker 1: she knows at that moment that they're dead. Slowly she
Speaker 1: climbs the stairs. Now she sees more blood pulled on
Speaker 1: the deck and maybe a knife. Suddenly, as she turns
Speaker 1: toward the front of the boat, Captain Harvey lunges at
Speaker 1: her and shoves her down the stairs, yelling get back
Speaker 1: down there. She retreats to her bunk, but then notices
Speaker 1: water and oil seeping in and beginning to cover the floor.
Speaker 1: Captain Harvey comes in. He seems to be holding a rifle,
Speaker 1: but then he leaves and she hears him go back
Speaker 1: up on deck. But the water is starting to cover
Speaker 1: her mattress now, and she knows she has to get out.
Speaker 1: Much like Rose in Titanic, she wades through waste deep
Speaker 1: water and finally climbs up to the deck. She sees
Speaker 1: that the ship's dinghy and rubber life raft are floating
Speaker 1: beside the boat. She yells, is the ship sinking? Captain
Speaker 1: Harvey yells back yes. He tells her to hold the
Speaker 1: line to the dinghy, but she drops it by mistake
Speaker 1: and it floats away from the Bluebell. That's when Harvey
Speaker 1: abandons Terry Joe altogether and jumps overboard to go catch it.
Speaker 1: He swims after the dinghy and then disappears into the night.
Speaker 1: But Terry Joe remembers there's a small cork life float
Speaker 1: tied to the main cabin wall. She quickly unties it,
Speaker 1: and just then the Bluebell sinks beneath her feet into
Speaker 1: the ocean. She stays low on the float, afraid Captain
Speaker 1: Harvey may come back to get her. She has no water,
Speaker 1: no food, and just very thin clothing. The moon had
Speaker 1: set and clouds moved in. All she could hear was
Speaker 1: the wind waves are now kicking up and the salt
Speaker 1: water is stinging her eyes and lips. All she's thinking
Speaker 1: is where's my father? The next day, the sun returns
Speaker 1: and begins to burn her terribly. On top of that,
Speaker 1: parrotfish with their sharp teeth go after her legs when
Speaker 1: she hangs them in the water off for her flimsy float.
Speaker 1: At one point, a small plane flies over, but it's
Speaker 1: clear they can't see her. Would anyone ever find her?
Speaker 1: Her only relief comes when a school of dolphins swims by,
Speaker 1: making her feel less alone as they swarm around her.
Speaker 1: Another night comes and offers relief from the sun, but
Speaker 1: she has odd dreams, and she hears her father calling
Speaker 1: to her, but he's not there. Meantime, the day after
Speaker 1: the Bluebell went down, an oil tanker spots a small
Speaker 1: wooden dinghy floating in the ocean. A man in the
Speaker 1: dinghy yells to them, my name is Julian Harvey. I
Speaker 1: am captain of the Bluebell. In the next couple of days,
Speaker 1: Harvey tells the coast guard in Miami that he was
Speaker 1: the only survivor of a terrible accident. He says a
Speaker 1: sudden squall damaged the sailboat, and his wife and the
Speaker 1: Duboro family were all lost after a fire broke out. Okay,
Speaker 1: now let's head back to Terry Joe. By day three,
Speaker 1: she's hallucinating more. She thinks she sees a tiny island
Speaker 1: with a palm tree. She paddles towards it, but it disappears.
Speaker 1: Day four and the sun is back, but she doesn't
Speaker 1: feel it burned because she's totally unconscious, now close to death.
Speaker 1: By mid morning, though she manages to open her eyes.
Speaker 1: She hears a rumbling sound and she makes out a
Speaker 1: big shadow. Suddenly, she dimly sees heads and waving arms,
Speaker 1: and there are faint voices. Finally, strong arms are pulling
Speaker 1: her up as she passes out again. She's been rescued
Speaker 1: by a Greek freight called the Captain THEO. Meantime, Captain
Speaker 1: Harvey is staying at a hotel in Miami when he
Speaker 1: hears the news that Terry Joe has been rescued. The
Speaker 1: next day, a maid enters his room and sees blood.
Speaker 1: The police arrive and find his bloody body. He has
Speaker 1: committed suicide. After a week in the hospital, police were
Speaker 1: finally able to speak with Terry Joe, and of course,
Speaker 1: her story was very different from the one the now
Speaker 1: dead Captain told the cop her father, mother, brother, and
Speaker 1: little sister, along with Dean Harvey, had been slaughtered by
Speaker 1: Julian Harvey. Why While the police think Harvey killed his
Speaker 1: wife to collect money from her life insurance, and perhaps
Speaker 1: doctor Dubero simply caught him in the act, setting off
Speaker 1: a horrifying chain of events. In the end, Terry Joe
Speaker 1: went back to Wisconsin to live with her father's sister
Speaker 1: and her three cousins. She later married and had her
Speaker 1: own three children, and in nineteen ninety eight, Oprah Winfrey
Speaker 1: arranged a reunion between Terry Joe and the captain of
Speaker 1: the ship that rescued her. Finally, in twenty ten, she
Speaker 1: wrote a book about the night her family was killed
Speaker 1: and her days lost at sea. In alone, orphaned on
Speaker 1: the ocean, she says, I always believed I was saved
Speaker 1: for a reason. If one person heals from a life
Speaker 1: tragedy after reading my story, it will have been worth it.
Speaker 1: I hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please
Speaker 1: please leave a review and I love it of course,
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Speaker 1: if you have a story you'd like me to cover.
Speaker 1: On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.
Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, premiere Networks,
Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
Speaker 1: to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
Speaker 1: at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the
Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.