On this day, late in the evening, the sailing ketch “Bluebelle” was scuttled following an act of mass murder by Julian Harvey, the ship’s captain. Harvey, together with his wife was hired to take the Duperrault family on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise from Florida Keys to the Bahamas. On the last night, though, Harvey murdered his wife in order to claim her life insurance money. Probably caught in the act, he then murdered the entire Duperrault family, except for the 11-year-old Terry Jo who was below deck. He then scuttled the boat and escaped on a life raft. He was rescued by an oil tanker the following day. Terry Jo, who had seen the bodies of her brother and mother, was rescued three and a half days later, barely alive, on a small cork dinghy. When she was finally able to speak, her version of the facts soon unmasked Harvey’s fabricated story, and when Harvey discovered that she had been found alive and was talking, he committed suicide almost immediately.
