Former Holy Cross Catholic Church office manager Deborah True, 72, will no longer enjoy her Colorado retirement as she begins serving 10 years in a Florida prison for stealing nearly $700,000 from church member donations.
Court records and True’s own statements to Vero Beach Police detectives show that True collaborated with the late Fr. Richard Murphy, who died in 2020, to systematically skim thousands of dollars per month off the church’s offering plate into a secret bank account for many years.
True and Murphy came to Vero Beach as a package deal in 1997, when Murphy was re-assigned from a Martin County parish where the duo worked together. Court records show True was a constant dining companion of Murphy, that they often vacationed together – sometimes in Vero parishioners’ northern homes – and that True was Murphy’s caregiver throughout an extended illness…