Barber: “Had you ever been in your room [cabin] when the main engine was running?”
Terry Jo: “Yes. It was running that night. When I went up the first time and came down again the engine started.” She said this was when she began to smell oil and noticed the water starting to rise in her room.
The sea was not rough, Terry Jo said, and the vessel was not listing much at the time.
Barber: “When you got to the life float just before the vessel went down, were there any sails or rigging in your way that you had to climb over or worm through? Any sails or anything of that type?”
Terry Jo: “Well, the boom was down in the water and the sail was there, too, and when I put the life raft out, it was on the sail.”
Barber: “But there was no rigging or wires in your way?”
Terry Jo: “No.”
Barber: “That night before you went down to bed, was there any rain?”
Terry Jo: “No, but as soon as I got off on the raft it started to rain.”
Barber: “Did you see the Bluebelle go down?”
Terry Jo: “No.”
It would have been impossible to see the Bluebelle go down in the pitch dark night, once the lights were extinguished.
The questions continued.
“How long did it take the Bluebelle to sink after you left?” Murdock asked.
“As soon as I got off. I didn’t look back.”
The second interrogation left the Coast Guard even more convinced of the truth of Terry Jo’s story and firm in their belief that Harvey had killed the others aboard the Bluebelle.
“We have no reason whatever to doubt her,” Murdock said.
“There was no wreckage when she ran up to the deck – wreckage that would have had to be there if Harvey’s story were true.
“Her story is more convincing than ever. This child could not possibly be evading anything. We asked her the questions in the roughest sort of way. We planned the questions with the idea of trying to trip her up. She told a straightforward story and did not deviate from it.”
Barber said he didn’t believe it had really occurred to Terry Jo yet that Harvey might have murdered those aboard. Indeed, for years afterward, Terry Jo neither expressed anger at Julian Harvey nor ever explicitly stated the belief that he had killed her family.
She never saw him do anything violent and so, for those many years, she called it all “the accident.”
After this second interrogation, Terry Jo was discharged from the hospital. The hospital had informed the press that she would be released in the afternoon, but she was spirited out of the hospital in the morning through a back door. Terry Jo drove to the airport with her aunt and uncle for a flight to Milwaukee to stay for a few days with another uncle, their tickets under assumed names. Terry Jo was heading home, although home would never be what it had been.
Terry Jo had spoken ill of no one, including Julian Harvey, since the Bluebelle tragedy, and she had been wonderfully supported by a great many people beyond family, friends, schoolmates – even by hundreds of complete strangers who wrote to her, some to tell her that they had named their newborn daughters after the bravest girl in the world. But one thing that added to her hurt after the Bluebelle tragedy was that there were a few people – very few in fact – who questioned the truth and accuracy of her story. It hurt that Mary Dene’s brothers back in Wisconsin had raised questions about her first interview and were not convinced that their brother-in-law had lied. Terry Jo knew she had told the truth as far as she could know it.
After the second interview was made public, Mary Dene’s brothers were satisfied that Terry Jo’s account was the true one, not that of their late brother-in-law.
But it turns out they were leaning that way already. Dene’s brother, Harry, now volunteered that Harvey had led Dene to believe before their marriage that he was well-to-do when, in fact, he was penniless and deeply in debt. Harry had evidently been doing a lot of research into Harvey’s background since shortly after the Bluebelle tragedy, possibly even hiring a private investigator. “He conned her into thinking he was a big shot, when he was nothing but a bum,” Harry had said.
Harry added that another thing he had learned was that Harvey once suggested to a friend that if he bought an airplane, Harvey could wreck it, make it look like an accident, survive the crash, and split the insurance proceeds with him. “Harvey had lots of experience wrecking planes and boats and coming out of them alive,” he said.
Terry Jo sits with a doll, given to her by the crew of the Captain Theo, while recovering in a Miami Hospital in 1961.
CHAPTER TEN
Terry Jo’s Truth
There was a growing view that Harvey had committed murder. Harvey’s friend, James Boozer, and others had serious doubts about his story of a devastating accident, making murder all the more likely. Harold Pegg, the Bluebelle’s owner, did not believe Harvey’s story from the moment he heard it. Pegg, a swimming pool contractor, had come to sailing only recently, although he had dreamed of owning a sailboat for years.
Although he had purchased the Bluebelle only four months earlier, Pegg had researched boats thoroughly before buying the sailing vessel. Experienced in engineering and construction, he knew when something was well built, and he soon knew a lot about sailboats. Besides, he wanted to make certain that whatever boat he purchased would be a sound investment.
Pegg vehemently denied that the Bluebelle’s mainmast was defective and could have failed as Harvey claimed. He had had the boat thoroughly inspected and the masts were completely sound, except for some superficial softening of the wood in one small area of the mainmast that was repaired at a boatyard. Harvey knew about this repair and may have used it as the basis for his claim of failure. Previous owners also testified that the Bluebelle was a sound boat, including one who had ridden out a hurricane in it with no damage.
Pegg also did not believe that there had been a fire. First of all, the mast could not have fallen straight down as Harvey claimed. The wind that broke it would have pushed it over the side, carrying rigging with it. But even if a fire had broken out in the engine room, all Harvey had to do was pull a release right there in the cockpit. Harvey knew all about that release because Pegg had shown it to him several times. The Bluebelle was equipped with a state-of-the-art fire suppression system. There was a fixed CO2 system – a large
CO2 bottle – in the engine room that could be quickly triggered by pulling the release in the cockpit close to the wheel. The CO2 would instantly be drawn into the engine and kill it. It also would instantly fill the entire engine compartment and much of the bilge beyond, immediately depriving any fire of oxygen.
He also did not believe that Dr. Duperrault would have kept the boat headed into the wind, fanning flames right back at anyone in the cockpit. That made no sense to him. And, unknown by either Pegg or investigators at the time, Arthur Duperrault was an experienced sailor, and a man who had a clear head in a crisis.
As it turned out, Harvey told his story of a squall, broken masts, and fire to a surprisingly large number of people in the two days between being picked up by the Gulf Lion and testifying at the Coast Guard hearing. He either talked to or was overheard by nearly a half-dozen members of the Gulf Lion crew. Collectively they observed a number of things that might help to clarify what actually happened, what Harvey’s state of mind was, and what his plan might have been.
The Gulf Lion captain noted that when Harvey climbed the rescue ladder, he was disheveled and barefoot, looking like a man who had abandoned a ship in desperate haste. While consistent with a sudden emergency, as Harvey claimed, collectively with other evidence it might suggest something else.
It was also interesting that Harvey twice told crew members that both Dr. and Mrs. Duperrault were killed outright by falling rigging, while he later told the formal hearing that the passengers were only injured. Harvey’s several versions of events certainly suggest he was making things up as he went along, and was not telling a straig
ht story.
Several Gulf Lion crewmen noted two additional things. First, that he didn’t act like someone who had just lost his wife, but seemed inappropriately cool, and he never asked to send messages to his wife’s family and relatives of the Duperraults. Second, that he seemed strangely anxious that a search might actually find survivors, and similarly anxious that there would have to be an official inquiry. He asked two or three crewmen whether they thought anybody might have survived, while otherwise arguing strenuously with the captain against a search by the Gulf Lion because it would be fruitless, saying he had already searched for hours. A couple of crewmen said he actually seemed relieved when they said no one could have survived in the water for long.
Two crewmen asked why Harvey had no blood on him, even though he said he had been surrounded by bleeding people in the cockpit. Harvey answered that seawater must have washed it off. They did not believe that a simple swim in the sea would wash blood out of clothes. In direct support of Terry Jo’s account of no fire, the crewmen did not smell smoke on Harvey’s clothes, or on her sister’s body.
One crewman who examined the raft found flares sitting virtually in plain sight in a bag, seriously undercutting Harvey’s later statement that he couldn’t find flares. Crewmen got the impression that Harvey did not want to use flares that night because he had reason not to want to be found too close to where the Bluebelle went down – perhaps too close to any evidence of what really happened.
One crewman who helped bring René down to the ship’s sick bay said that the body of the girl was still soft, too soft in his opinion for her to have died some twelve hours previously. This is only one layman’s observation and opinion, but it raises the chilling implication that René might somehow have been alive initially with Harvey and that Harvey had drowned her later. It is hard to imagine how René could still have been alive, however, since Terry Jo never heard or saw any sign of her. It is also possible that René’s body was flexible not because she had died recently but because rigor mortis had worn off and the warmth of the day had softened tissues.
As the Gulf Lion was closing in to pick up Harvey, one crewman reported something that intrigued investigators and that speaks to whether Harvey had a plan: He saw something red sinking slowly near the dinghy as the Gulf Lion got close. To him it looked like a standard gas can. This told Coast Guard investigators that Harvey might have had a small outboard (a “kicker”) that he also threw overboard, as none was found. Several crewmen who examined the dinghy (which was retrieved along with the raft) also saw the marks of a motor on the stern of the dinghy, and at least two added that they looked fresh. The conclusion that Harvey had propulsion seems inescapable, as does the conclusion that he did not want that to be known. This suggests that he had a destination he was trying to reach, or at least that he wanted to go some distance before he was found.
It would have taken time for Harvey to discard both a kicker and a gas can after being spotted: The motor would have been relatively quick and unobtrusive – all he would need to do is unscrew the clamps and tip it over the back; the gas can would take longer because, in order to sink it, he would have had to pour out the gas and then hold the can under water while it slowly gurgled full with seawater. Meanwhile the Gulf Lion would be getting ever closer. Then, even full of seawater, a gas can would have enough neutral buoyancy that it would, in fact, sink slowly.
As far as Harvey having a means of propulsion (besides the dinghy’s sail), there is another fact that did not receive a lot of attention in the hearing or documents: the Coast Guard record shows that Harvey traveled roughly eight miles in half a day. (This has to be a rough estimate because it isn’t certain exactly what time the Bluebelle sank, nor precisely where it sank.) Terry Jo drifted roughly eighteen miles in three-and-a-half days. In other words, Harvey traveled nearly half as far as Terry Jo in one-seventh the time, a rate over three times that of hers. Since Terry Jo’s time and distance define the drift rate resulting from wind and current alone, clearly Harvey had propulsion.
Further, since the raft behind the dinghy was virtually a sea anchor, Harvey was correct that wind pressure on the sail would tend to push the dinghy over rather than propel the tandem forward efficiently and safely. Harvey could have been right that he could not reasonably use the sail, except possibly in lighter winds.
Therefore the only way he could have traveled three times faster than Terry Jo is with a motor. On the other hand, he could not go far with only a can of gas and a tiny motor that might make one knot at best. So there is no way to be sure where he was headed or why, although it does seem he wanted to be found later rather than sooner, perhaps at a time of his choosing.
It is clear that he was headed roughly due west – possibly a little north of west – toward Florida, rather than southwest toward Great Stirrup Cay only eight or so miles away. Where was he headed? He certainly knew where Great Stirrup was (and it was conveniently equipped with a lighthouse to head to). And he certainly could tell direction from the stars overnight and then from the sun in the morning, not to mention from what he knew to be a generally southeasterly breeze.
It appears that Harvey hoped to be found later rather than sooner, possibly to make it harder to calculate where the Bluebelle had gone down and thus more difficult to find any debris or bodies. But was it also to make him look more like the beleaguered, indeed heroic, survivor? The longer he was at sea before he fired his flares, the more compassion and praise he would receive. Once he got closer to Florida, he would not have to worry about being picked up because there was a great deal of boat and small-plane traffic between the Bahamas and Florida to spot him. When he did decide to set off flares, he could then claim that a couple of other boats and planes just hadn’t seen his earlier ones.
The crew of the Gulf Lion tended to respond to Harvey in one of two ways: while most of them were suspicious and saw through Harvey’s story (one even said “there was something funny there”), two crewmen said that Harvey seemed a “damned decent fellow.”
When the Gulf Lion transferred Harvey and the body of René to the harbor boat at Nassau so Harvey could fly back to Florida, the pilot boat skipper said that he saw “bruises on the child’s forehead.” This suggests that she, too, might have died violently as Terry Jo’s testimony revealed that Jean and Brian Duperrault had.
The port director met Harvey when he was taken ashore in Nassau. Harvey handed him a statement about the loss of the Bluebelle he had written during the many hours he was on the Gulf Lion. The director said that the Bluebelle captain looked bedraggled. He was still wearing the salt-encrusted pants in which he had left the Bluebelle. The Gulf Lion crew had given him a clean shirt and shoes for his bare feet, but for some reason he had stubbornly refused to trade his salt-stained pants for better ones.
Harvey was taken to a hotel. One of the hotel staff who came into his room to help him settle in was startled to see that one of the beds was “covered with money – wet money that was drying out. I don’t know how much there was, but I saw a fifty, lots of twenties and tens, fives, and ones. They covered the whole top of the bed.” That must have been the reason Harvey would not give up his pants. Friends of Harvey’s later shared, in fact, that he had a practice of splitting the lining of his pants and concealing large amounts of cash there. Large amounts of cash also suggest some kind of plan, and secretiveness.
By this time, the port director had read Harvey’s statement and found, like others, that Harvey’s story “had plenty of loopholes in it.” He waited for Harvey to return and answer some follow-up questions, but the next morning Harvey went straight to the airport and flew to Miami.
Bahamian authorities decided to do an autopsy on René’s body. The cause of death was found to be drowning. The medical examiner was unable to say, of course, if the drowning was accidental or intentional. He reported that he found bruises on the child’s left elbow, but his report mentioned none on her forehead. But the finding along with no signs of trauma does little to cl
arify how Terry Jo’s sister actually died.
René’s body was sent to Green Bay. Weeks later some urged that the body be exhumed and a second autopsy be performed to check whether there were, in fact, bruises on René’s forehead or other signs of trauma, and whether drowning had indeed caused her death. It is possible, of course, that what some on the Gulf Lion crew saw as bruises on René’s forehead were just blotches of discoloration that can begin to form hours after death as unoxygenated blood pools in tissues.
While the reports of many who saw Harvey right after the Bluebelle tragedy undercut his story in various ways, there were two other stunning developments that spoke more directly to Harvey’s state of mind and to what happened on the Bluebelle.
First, an anonymous telephone caller reached Mary Dene Harvey’s brother, Harry Jordan, in Milwaukee and told him to “Check Traveler’s Insurance, Miami.” This anonymous call suggests that someone knew things about this case or about Harvey’s personal affairs, but no such person was ever identified. A quick follow-up found that shortly before the Bluebelle voyage, Harvey had taken out a $20,000 policy on Dene’s life, with himself as the beneficiary. It included a double-indemnity clause that meant a payoff of $40,000 (about $300,000 today) if she died accidentally. Possibly the caller was simply a concerned insurance company employee who tracked down Mary Dene’s next of kin because he knew about Harvey’s insurance policy and had read about the Bluebelle story in the press.
Then there was one final, powerful statement from Harold Pegg: He was curious about scratches he noticed on Harvey’s right arm and hand when he saw him the evening after Harvey returned. “He told me they were wire cuts that he got them when he scrambled through the rigging that was tangled in the cockpit, while going after the cable cutters. But I’ve worked hard all my life and I know wire cuts when I see them.” Then he added: “Those were fingernail scratches. Somebody fought him.” Harry Jordan recalled that Mary Dene had very long fingernails.
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