Debra Morgan spelled Deborah in the novels is a fictional character created by Jeff Lindsay for his Dexter book series. In Lindsay's novels, she first appeared in Darkly Dreaming Dexter and was featured in every novel in the series. In the television series based on Lindsay's books, she is mainly portrayed by Jennifer Carpenter in Dexter and New Blood , and as a younger version of herself by Molly Brown in Original Sin.
Debra is the adoptive sister of the series' antihero protagonist Dexter Morgan. Hall , whom Harry brought home after rescuing him from the scene of his mother's murder. A tough, foul-mouthed tomboy, she craved her father's attention and envied Dexter for the amount of time Harry spent with him, unaware that Harry was training him to be a vigilante serial killer.
When Debra was a teenager, her mother died of cancer. From then on, she decided to become a homicide detective, like her father, and took Harry's gun to practice shooting.
Dexter found out and told Harry, who punished her. Hurt, Debra told Dexter that she wished that Harry had never brought him home. She was immediately remorseful for saying it, however, and apologized. Debra was devastated when Harry died of an apparently accidental overdose of heart medication - unaware that he in fact committed suicide, unable to live with having trained Dexter to get away with murder.
Soon afterward, she joined the Miami-Metro Police Department, where he had worked. She spent three years in patrol and then another two years in vice before being promoted by Captain Tom Matthews Geoff Pierson a friend of her father , becoming a Homicide officer at the start of the first season.
