June 6, 2025 • 9 mins
Her family is murdered while on the adventure of a lifetime and the 11 year old survivor is lost at sea for days. As it turns out, the murderer is someone they all trusted with their dreams . . and their lives.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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.
(00:26):
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
(00:46):
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
(01:09):
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
(01:31):
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
(01:53):
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
(02:17):
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
(02:41):
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
(03:03):
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
(03:25):
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,
(03:46):
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
(04:09):
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
(04:30):
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
(04:51):
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
(05:13):
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
(05:36):
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.
(05:57):
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
(06:18):
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
(06:39):
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.
(07:02):
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
(07:26):
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
(07:48):
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
(08:11):
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
(08:32):
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
(08:53):
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.
(09:20):
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.
(09:43):
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
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.
(00:26):
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
(00:46):
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
(01:09):
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
(01:31):
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
(01:53):
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
(02:17):
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
(02:41):
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
(03:03):
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
(03:25):
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,
(03:46):
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
(04:09):
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
(04:30):
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
(04:51):
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
(05:13):
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
(05:36):
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.
(05:57):
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
(06:18):
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
(06:39):
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.
(07:02):
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
(07:26):
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
(07:48):
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
(08:11):
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
(08:32):
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
(08:53):
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.
(09:20):
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.
(09:43):
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
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