She had been rescued at sea three and a half days after the incident, having drifted upon a small cork dinghy without food, water or shelter for approximately 82 hours.

"[7] The final complement of the Bluebelle consisted of 40-year-old Arthur Duperrault, his wife Jean (38) and their three children: Brian (14), Terry Jo (11) and René (7).

The family planned to spend a week living at sea aboard a chartered yacht in a warm climate, docking at several chosen locations and possibly extending the sabbatical if all enjoyed themselves.

[2] They arrived in Fort Lauderdale in early November, where they chartered the 60-foot (18 m) ketch Bluebelle, stationed at the Bahia Mar Marina, for $515.

[2] At approximately 12:35 p.m. on Monday, November 13, a crew member aboard the oil tanker Gulf Lion observed a man waving frantically from a dinghy drifting in their direction and shouting, "Help!

Pulling the man aboard, crew members observed the deceased body of a red-haired prepubescent girl wearing a life jacket inside the dinghy.

Harvey explained that at approximately 8:30 the previous evening,[14] his small vessel was hit by a sudden, strong squall that caused Bluebelle to rapidly keel over and the main mast to snap at a location between the Abaco Islands and Great Stirrup Cay,[1] slightly injuring his wife and Arthur and piercing the ship's hull.

He attempted to retrieve a wire cutter from the cabin to clear the deck space, but a sudden fire broke out on board the small vessel, and he was not able to rescue his wife or any of his passengers.

Although his calm demeanor and the fact his dinghy had been filled with various survival supplies caused some to initially express serious doubts as to his claims,[17] his story could not be disproven, and he was allowed to return to Miami on November 15 to face further questioning by the United States Coast Guard.

Spachidakis immediately summoned Captain Stylianos Coutsodontis to the bridge, and the two gradually realized Spachidakis' sighting was not a fishing vessel, but a small, oblong white raft carrying a young blonde-haired child dressed in a white cotton blouse and pink corduroy slacks, leaning backward and waving feebly.

Her ability to speak rapidly waned, and the child soon responded to questions by weakly gesticulating, before lapsing into a semi-comatose state.

[21] Coutsodontis immediately informed the Coast Guard of their discovery and Terry Jo's medical predicament, and a rescue helicopter was soon summoned.

There, the child began to slowly recuperate, although for over two days she was unable to divulge to police or the Coast Guard the circumstances surrounding her rescue and the truth of what had actually happened to her family and Mary Dene Harvey.

[18] Terry Jo was adamant that the mast of Bluebelle was intact, that there had been no fire aboard the vessel and that the sea was calm throughout the entirety of the events prior to the sinking.

[11][25] On November 16, Harvey reiterated his story to Coast Guard investigators that a sudden squall had brought down Bluebelle's masts, holing the ship's hull, rupturing the auxiliary gas tank and starting a fire, the circumstances of which made it impossible for him to rescue his wife or any member of the Duperrault family.

On November 17, midway through Harvey's scheduled interrogation, he was informed that Terry Jo had been rescued the previous day, and that her condition was improving.

[19] Harvey then drove a short distance toward Biscayne Boulevard, where he checked into the Sandman Motel under the assumed name of John Monroe, paying cash for a room.

[29] Searching further into Harvey's background, investigators discovered he had previously survived a 1949 car accident that had killed the second of his previous five wives and her mother, when a 1946 Plymouth De Luxe he had been driving plunged off a bridge at high speed into a bayou on a rainy night and in which he had swum to safety, leaving his wife, Joan, and her mother, Myrtle May Burgess Boylan, to drown.

[19][33] Following the loss of her family, Terry Jo returned to Green Bay to live with her father's sister, her grandmother and three cousins in the city of De Pere.

Due to contemporary psychological coping strategies in the early 1960s, authority figures very seldom spoke with Terry Jo about her ordeal, and she received no trauma counseling.

[19] However, Logan and others have theorized that Harvey had actually intended to kill her, but when Terry Jo accidentally dropped the rope connected to his dinghy, he was forced to dive overboard in order to prevent its floating away without him, and thus left her alive on the sinking ship, believing she would not survive.

[36] Forty-nine years after her ordeal, Tere Jo granted a televised interview with NBC personality Matt Lauer, in which she stated: "I think he probably thought I would go down with the ship."

She also stated her belief Harvey had originally intended to discreetly murder his wife and dispose of her body, later to claim she was lost at sea, but that she likely fought her husband, attracting the attention of the Duperrault family.

Tere Jo has also stated she has "always believed I was saved for a reason ... if one person heals from a life tragedy [after reading my story], my journey will have been worth it.