On New Year’s Eve 1937, a racing yacht named Aafje was towed into port in San Pedro, California. The yacht was involved in one of the last known cases of piracy in California, with three crew members arrested and others released. The owner and captain of the yacht, as well as a passenger, were missing.
On New Year’s Eve 1937, the bedraggled racing yacht Aafje, out of fuel and her mainsail broken, was towed into port by the Coast Guard in San Pedro, California . An FBI agent took a motorboat to meet what was later nicknamed “the death yacht ,” and arrested three crew members .
George Spernak, 19, Robert Horne, 20, and pregnant 17-year-old Lillian Morgan were taken into custody while the other passengers — Elsie Berdan, a 21-year-old nurse who was Lillian’s caregiver, and Gertrude Turner and her 8-year-old son — were released. Dwight Faulding, Gertrude’s fiancé and the owner and captain of the Aafje, was missing, as was Jack Morgan, Lillian’s husband and the father-to-be. Morgan had chartered the 58-footer for a short pleasure cruise but had instead taken them all on a journey to hell in what was one of the last known cases of piracy in California
Death Yacht Piracy California Crew Members Missing
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