TODAY IN HISTORY: Girl's miracle survival exposes sailing boat murder spree
November 16
Eleven-year-old Terry Jo Duperrault was the only survivor of the brutal murders of the rest of her family, as well as that of the killer's wife, aboard the sailboat Bluebell on the night of November 12, 1961.
The Duperrault family, including father Arthur, mother Jean, and Terry Jo's siblings Brian, 14, and Rene, 7, had chartered the Bluebell for a cherished family vacation. For the week-long cruise from Florida to the Bahamas, the vessel was captained by Julian Harvey, 44, while his wife, Mary Dene Harvey, was aboard as the cook.
On the evening of November 12, those aboard ate dinner before Terry Jo retired below deck.
Shortly after midnight, the oil tanker Gulf Lion spotted Julian Harvey on a life raft, calling for help. He had Rene's body with him, claiming to have retrieved her from the water after a fire broke out on the Bluebell and the main mast snapped in a squall.
Harvey was questioned by authorities in Nassau, but his story could not be disproven, so he was returned to the US on November 15, where the Coast Guard took up the examination.
On November 16, Terry Jo was found alive at sea.
The young girl was suffering badly from exposure and dehydration, having sat upright on a small cork float for three days without food or water.
She was rescued by the Greek freighter Captain Theo, but could not speak about what happened aboard the Bluebell until she had recovered sufficiently, on November 20.
By that time, Harvey was dead. Having been told of Terry Jo's rescue during his questioning by the Coast Guard on November 17, Harvey checked into a motel under a false name.
He was later found dead in the room, alongside a two-page letter addressed to a former military companion.
Terry Jo said that on the night of November 12, she had been awakened by her brother screaming. She got up to investigate and found the bodies of her mother and brother in the main cabin.
Harvey then appeared and struck the girl, telling her to return to her room. She complied, noticing oil and water beginning to pour in. Harvey entered the room with a rifle but did not shoot her and soon went back upstairs. Terry Jo in time followed and Harvey had her hold a rope connected to a dinghy he had lowered into the water. He abandoned her on the ship.
Terry Jo was able to loose the small cork float, on which she sat for several days, praying for rescue.
The Coast Guard's investigation found that Harvey had recently taken out a hefty double indemnity insurance policy on his wife. They determined he meant to kill her to collect, framing her death as an accident at sea, and surmised that members of the Duperrault family caught him in the act, prompting the wider murder spree.
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On November 12, 1912, the frozen bodies of several of the men on Robert Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole were found in a tent on the Ross ice shelf in the Antarctic.
Robert Falcon Scott's expedition had faced troubles from the beginning, including his ship Terra Nova facing entombment in pack ice, and the party's ponies faring poorly in the cold, and missing resupply meetings.
Five men - Scott, Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Lawrence Oates, and Edgar Evans, reached the South Pole on January 17 - only to find a tent indicating Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it.
On the return march, Evans died on February 17 after his physical condition rapidly worsened.
By March 16, due in part to Scott's original orders for the return march being modified by his support teams without his knowledge, conditions were even worse, and Oates, with frostbitten feet, left camp one day to walk to his death to spare supplies for the others, declaring, "I am just going outside, and may be some time", as recorded in Scott's journal.
The remaining three men made their final camp on March 19. Scott died on March 29, and is believed to have been the last one alive.
When their tent was discovered by a search party on November 12, they piled ice on the tent to turn it into a cairn and set a memorial cross atop it.
On November 12, 2021, the Los Angeles Superior Court formally ended the 14-year conservatorship to pop star Britney Spears.
The conservatorship, under her father Jamie Spears, had been in place since 2008. Initially intended as temporary due to concerns over the singer's mental health, it was made permanent despite her objections.
The conservatorship was controversial among Britney Spears' fans from the beginning, prompting a "Free Britney" movement that swelled from 2020 as more details emerged about the pop star's own discontent.
Spears donned a yellow dress in an Instagram post to celebrate the end of the conservatorship.
Spears accused her father, other family members, and her management, of abuse, including coercion and conflict of interest.
Spears' long legal battle and the revelations of the mismanagement of the conservatorship has prompted closer looks at how the practice can be abused in the US.
Stalin launched several assassination attempts against his old rival, finally succeeding in Mexico in 1940 when a Spanish-born Russian secret agent mortally wounded Trotsky in his study with an ice-pick.
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