Debra Burch was the secondary antagonist in the WB TV series Smallville, appearing in the episode "Stray".
She was portrayed by Brandy Ledford.
History[]
Early life[]
Debra met James Gibson who was a widow and career criminal after his wife passed away. She became his wife, accomplice and stepmother to young Ryan James, a boy with telepathic abilities. Debra and her new husband pursued a life of crime using James' stepson Ryan to successfully carry out robberies by exploiting his telepathy.
She was cold and distance towards Ryan as she was constantly unnerved by his powers and treated him badly. Like James, Debra treated Ryan horribly and only cared about using him for crimes.
Season One[]
After watching his guardians murder a pawnbroker, Ryan tried to run away and ended up running into the path of Martha Kent's incoming car. Martha took Ryan to the hospital, briefly getting away from James and Debra. Debra became an accessory to murder in the death of Jules Casey, a pawnshop owner.
Debra and James soon tracked Ryan down and followed him to the Kent Farm who were sitting outside, reading a newspaper article about Lex Luthor.
Debra arrived at the Kent Farm posing as a Child Services worker in order to get the Kents to give the boy up. She warned Ryan that she would kill them if he told them who she really was. Ryan played along and left before saying good-bye to Clark.
Martha asked if they could wait but Debra said it was not possible. Jonathan told Debra that his actual parents had been abusing Ryan and she said they would look after him while smiling falsely. Debra and Ryan met up with James and Lex in a limousine and forced Ryan to get an account password to Lex's account from his mind. Debra and James arrived at a bowling alley to ditch the limo they had stolen from Lex while trying to break into his trust fund account using a password that Ryan had gotten from Lex's mind.
While Debra planned to burn the limo, James discovered the password was wrong and got angry. He demanded Ryan tell him the real password. Debra wanted to kill Ryan but he told her that James was planning to kill her after this job to take the loot for himself. Although James claimed that Ryan was lying, Debra coldly pointed out that, as much as Ryan had always creeped her out, he never lied to her. James, feeling betrayed, admitted that Debra was right then raised his shotgun and blasted her, killing Debra.
