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#1. Floating Adrift At The Bahamas
Back in 1961, a freighter sailed around the Bahamas when its crew spotted something in the waters below. Upon closer inspection, they found out that it was a young girl, who was barely alive, drifting through the ocean on a tiny cork float.
How exactly did the 11-year-old child named Terry Jo Duperrault found herself floating aimlessly in the Atlantic Ocean alone?
#2. Family Trip
Little Terry Jo’s visit to this part of the world was initially meant to be the family trip of a lifetime for the Dupperraults. In fact, Dr. Arthur Duperrault, a 41-year-old eye doctor from Green Bay, Wisconsin and his wife Jean, 38, had saved up money for a long time just for this trip.
#3. An Unforgettable Journey
Of course, since it had the makings of an unforgettable journey, the couple wanted to take all three of their children – Brian, 14, Terry Jo, 11 and Renee, 7 – with them. So, they chartered a 60-foot boat named ‘Bluebell’ to ferry them from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to the islands of the Bahamas.
#4. Off They Go
The ship set sail with the Duperrault family on board on November 8, 1961. Its captain, Julian Harvey, had brought along his wife, Mary Dene, and for the first four days, the trip went smoothly.
#5. Stopover
During those first four days, the ‘Bluebelle’ headed east and aimed to reach the small islands of Bimini. From there, the boat reached Sandy Point, a community on the island of Great Abaco. The group stopped over there to do some snorkeling and to gather some shells.
#6. Once-In-A-Lifetime Vacation
Towards the tail end of their stay on the island, Arthur Duperrault spoke with Roderick W. Pinder, which was Sandy Point’s village commissioner back then. Duperrault reportedly commented, “This has been a once-in-a-lifetime-vacation. We’ll be back before Christmas.” Unfortunately for Duperrault, his prediction would never come true.
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#7. November 12
So the group went their way, and on the evening of November 12, with a full night’s return sailing ahead, the young Terry Jo Duperrault decided to sleep in her cabin early that night. However, she would later wake up to her brother’s cries and right at that moment, she knew that something wasn’t right.
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#8. A Sign of Things To Come
Terry Jo, who now goes by the name Tere Duperrault Fassbender, told Fox News almost 50 years later, “I was awakened by my brother screaming ‘Help, daddy, help.” She adds, “It was the type of scream that you know that something horrible is happening.”
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#9. A Murder Plot
What had happened was that the captain, a 44-year-old military pilot with a checkered past, had murdered his wife of four months that night. His reason? It was later found out that Harvey had not taken out a life insurance policy on Mary Dene, his wife. Harvey then planned on disposing of Dene’s body overboard and report her as lost at sea that night.
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#10. From Bad To Worse
Worse still was that this wasn’t the first time that Harvey had lost a wife in a brutal manner. In fact, it was later discovered that Harvey was somehow able to escape from a car crash that took the life of one of his – wait for it – five previous wives. Additionally, he’s cashed in on some sizable insurance payments after both his yacht and powerboat “sunk”.
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#11. One By One
Things didn’t go quite to plan this time around, though, as Dr. Duperrault allegedly saw Harvey attacking Dene and intervened. Harvey then murdered him, then went on to kill the remaining members of the Duperrault family. This left little Terry Jo, who was sleeping in her cabin below.
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#12. All Alone
She emerged a few minutes later, only to find her mother and brother in a pool of their own blood on the cabin floor. Assuming they’d already died, she climbed up to the deck to ask the captain what had happened.
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#13. Cowering In Fear
Harvey, however, would allegedly push Terry Jo back below the decks, after which the girl immediately returned to her bunk. She says she stayed there until water had begun to fill her cabin.
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#14. The Girl With The Blue Mustang
In an attempt to presumably cash in on insurance, Harvey opened up the ship’s sea valves to scuttle the vessel. She also gave Terry Jo a rope attached to a dinghy to hold. Years later, Terry Jo’s friend, Richard D. Logan, speculated that Harvey had also planned to murder the girl as well.
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#15. A Lucky Break/h3>
Logan then told in an interview with Today, “When he saw her on deck, he realized ‘Oh my God, there’s a possibility that she might survive. I better kill her.” So he went forward to get a knife or something to kill her. But she did not hold onto the line.”
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#16. On board a Sinking Ship
Instead of holding on, Terry Jo dropped the rope, and Harvey allegedly dove into the sea to try to catch up with the dinghy. In a way, the murderous captain had abandoned the newly orphaned girl on the now sinking ship.
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#17. Free But Not Safe Yet
After realizing what had happened, Terry Jo says that she unfastened a tiny cork float from the boat and just sailed away on it as the Bluebelle disappeared beneath the waves. Wearing only a light blouse and rosy pants, the little girl was at the mercy of the elements, which would’ve been freezing cold at night and scorching hot during the day.
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#18. Odds of Survival
Drifting alone in the middle of a vast ocean, the odds were slim that Terry Jo would be found by a passing plane or vessel. She says a small aircraft passed overhead once, raising her hopes. However, the pilots were not able to spot her.
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#19. Not Alone
Terry Jo reportedly said that mysterious forms beneath the ocean’s surface, near her raft, had spied on her one afternoon. However, she later found out that they were only porpoises.
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#20. Collapsing Into Oblivion
The harsh environment would soon take its toll and Terry Jo started to hallucinate. At one point, she reportedly imagined a small, barren island just ahead of her. But, when she attempted to splash toward it, the island vanished. It didn’t take long for Terry Jo to collapse from exhaustion.
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#21. Rescued At Last
Eventually, Captain Theo, a Greek freighter discovered and rescued Terry Jo. She was near death, with a 105ºF fever and suffering from sunburn, as well as severe dehydration. One of the screw snapped a photograph of the little girl floating in the tiny boat. The photo then made headlines all over the world.
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#22. The Killer Survives
Three days before her discovery, the coastguard had found Harvey floating in Bluebell’s dinghy along with Renee’s dead body. The murderous captain claims that a sudden storm battered the ship, sparked a fire and ultimately sank the vehicle. He also said that he had tried to revive the girl after finding her in the water.
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#23. Committing Suicide
Police would then discover Harvey’s lifeless body behind the bathroom door of his hotel room. Apparently, the murderous captain had killed himself soon after news of Terry Jo’s rescue reached him.
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#24. Memorialization
Terry Jo’s family later memorialized the deceased at the Ford Howard Memorial Park, Wisconsin. The plaque there states, “In memory of the Arthur W. Duperrault Family; Lost off the Bahama Isles Nov. 12, 1961. Found in the hearts of their loved ones, dwelling forever with him who is eternal life. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
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#25. Moving On
Terry Jo then tried her best to move on from the tragedy. After her release from the hospital, she went back to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to reside with her aunt and her aunt’s three children. For the next 20 years, though, she’d kept mum about the disaster that befell her on November 1961.
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#26. Writing a Book
Then, in the 1980s, Terry Jo began to open up to a few of her close friends about what had happened to her. Afterwards, she sought psychiatric care and later co-authored a book with Logan. The book was titled “Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean” and discussed her horrific experiences in depth. Terry Jo finally decided to publish the back in May of 2010, nearly half a century after the traumatic events.
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#27. Book Signing
While doing signings for the book, people from Terry Jo’s past started turning up. In fact, during an interview with 48 Hours, she said, “We had a book signing last month and some of my teachers from 49 years ago showed up, just to see that I was alright after all these years. They said they were sorry for not being able to talk to me and help. In those years, they were told to pretend like it never happened. I learned to live with staying quiet.”
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#28. Reflection
In an interview with Today News, Terry Jo reflected on her childhood ordeal. She said, “I was never frightened. I was an outdoors child, and I loved the water,” she said. She added, “I had strong faith. I believed in God and I prayed for him to help me, and I just went with the flow.”
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#29. Surely A Happy Ending
As a matter of fact, Terry Jo works closely with water until today. She’s also since credited the book as the culmination of her healing process. She hopes that her book will help other people overcome incidents of tragedy in their own lives. “I always believed I was saved for a reason,” she said in an interview with 48 Hours. “But it took me 50 years to gain the strength to be able to give other people hope with my story.”
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