Couple arrested for stealing Burnet County infants’ IDs accused of espionage
Walter Glenn Primrose (left) and Gwynn Darle Morrison were each charged with conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, aggravated identify theft, and making false statements in the application and use of passports. The couple stole the identities of two Burnet County infants who died in 1967 and 1968. Courtesy images
The identities of two Burnet County infants who died in 1967 and 1968 were stolen and used for 30 years by two people recently arrested in Hawaii and charged with four felonies and potentially espionage. Charges were filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii and sealed by order of the court until July 21.
Walter Glenn Primrose and Gwynn Darle Morrison were each charged with conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, aggravated identify theft, and two separate accounts of false statements in the application and use of passports.
Primrose adopted the identify of Bobby Edward Fort, who was born in Dallas County on July 22, 1967, to Charolette Eileen Fort. He died in a Burnet County hospital on Oct. 12, 1967. The cause of death was listed as asphyxia.
According to online records, he was buried in the Marble Falls City Cemetery, but after an on-site search, only the graves of his grandparents Clarence Edward Fort and Gwendolyn Margaret Farmer Fort were found.
Morrison took the identify of Julie Lyn Montague, who was born in a Burnet County hospital. The infant’s grave marker in the Burnet City Cemetery gives only one date for birth and death: 1968. Her parents were John H. and Doralene (Casey) Montague. No cause of death was listed.
According to the unsealed court document, the couple “unlawfully assumed identities of the two Burnet County infants and used those identities to obtain passports, (U.S.) Department of Defense identity document cards, and Social Security cards.”
Both Primrose and Morrison were born in 1955 — Primrose in Shelby County, Texas, and Morrison in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. They both attended Calhoun High School in Port Lavaca, Texas, from 1970-73 and Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches from 1976-79. They were married in Nacogdoches on Aug. 19, 1980. They remarried in 1988 under their new names.
They purchased a home in Nacogdoches in 1981. It was foreclosed on in 1987, which is when they both obtained the Texas birth certificate records for the two infants, according to court documents. An Associated Press reporter who covered the bail hearing for Primrose reported that the couple gave family members the keys to their foreclosed home and told them to take anything they wanted. They also told their family they were going into witness protection.
Primrose enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1994 under the Fort alias, which stated he was born in 1967 rather than 1955, his actual birth year. He served in the Coast Guard for 20 years. He began working for U.S. Company 1, a Department of Defense contractor, in 2016, his last known employer. As Bobby Edward Fort, he has been issued five passports, including two U.S. government official passports.
He was also issued a passport under the name Primrose in 1999 while still holding an active passport under his alias.
Three passports were issued to Morrison under her Montague alias.
In August 2018, Primrose and Morrison both applied for and were issued Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System identification cards.
At the July 28 bail hearing, the prosecuting attorney revealed photos of the couple that were taken in the 1980s showing them dressed in brown KGB uniforms. The KGB was the equivalent of the CIA in the Soviet Union. Their defense attorney, Craig Jerome, called the accusation of espionage “government over reaching,” claiming the costumes were part of a joke.
Primrose is being held without bail. Morrison’s bail hearing is set for Tuesday, Aug. 2. Both face up to 17 years in prison if convicted on all charges.