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