A Texas man spent 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard using a dead baby’s stolen identity, obtaining a secret-level security clearance and baffling investigators who later uncovered information that the man and his wife—who also lived under an assumed name—may have had ties to Russian intelligence,
according to court filings reviewed by The Daily Beast.
Walter Glenn Primrose, 67, and Gwynn Darle Morrison, also 67, are accused of carrying out a mysterious scheme in which they masqueraded under pilfered personas for decades. Primrose, who retired from the Coast Guard as an avionics technician in 2016, then went on to work as a cleared defense contractor at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point in Hawaii.
He continues to hold a government-issued security clearance, which investigators say he has had for more than two decades. Last year, a
Russian spy ship was observed lurking off the coast of Hawaii for several days. In 2021,
a Russian vessel was tracked near Hawaiian waters, in an incident one expert said echoed the activities of the Cold War era.
Primrose, who was born in Texas, and Morrison, who was born in Virginia, both attended the same high school in Port Lavaca, Texas, then went to the same college in Nacogdoches, graduating in 1979,
states a complaint unsealed Friday in Honolulu federal court and obtained first by The Daily Beast. They got married in August 1980, and bought a house together the following year, it says.
In 1987, investigators allege, Primrose and Morrison “both obtained Texas birth certificate records for deceased American born infants, that they used to unlawfully assume the identities of ‘Bobby Edward Fort’ and ‘Julie Lyn Montague,’ respectively.” The two “have been perpetrating criminal fraud acts ever since,” according to the complaint.
Fort had been born in Dallas in July 1967, and died that October of asphyxia, according to the complaint. Montague had been born in Burnet, Texas, in 1968 and also died before her first birthday, the complaint states. The two infants were buried in cemeteries 14 miles apart.
The couple allegedly obtained driver’s licenses and state ID cards under their new, false identities, along with new Social Security numbers as Fort and Montague.
Within six months, Primrose and Morrison “had successfully assumed the identities” of Fort and Montague, the complaint states.
“Further, records obtained by your affiant revealed that Primrose and Morrison re-married each other on 08 August 1988 under their respective assumed identities… in Austin, TX,” it says.
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