Hawaii Defense Contractor, Wife Used Names Of Dead Babies For Decades

HONOLULU, HI — A Hawaii defense contractor and his wife are facing federal fraud charges after prosecutors said they assumed the identities of two dead Texas babies and lived under the names for decades.

Bobby Fort died of asphyxia in 1967 and was buried in Marble Falls, Texas. The following year, Julie Montague died and was buried 14 miles away in Burnet, Texas. She was 3 weeks old.

When Montague's father, now 91, found out someone was using her name decades later, he was stunned.

“I still can’t believe it happened,” Montague told The Associated Press. "The odds are like one-in-a-trillion that they found her and used her name. People stoop to do anything nowadays. Let kids rest in peace.”

In court documents filed July 21, prosecutors accused Walter Glenn Primrose, and Gwynn Darle Morrison of unlawfully assumed the identities of Fort and Julie Montague. They applied for and received passports, Defense Department ID cards and social security cards using the names of the dead, authorities said.

The couple, both Texas natives, were arrested Friday in Kapolei on the island of Oahu and charged with conspiracy to commit offense against the United States, aggravated identity theft and making false statements in applying for and using a passport.

Prosecutors are seeking to have the couple held without bail.

Primrose was born in 1955 in Shelby County, Texas, and Morrison was born that same year in Fort Belvoir Virginia. They attended the same high school in Port Lavaca, Texas, from 1970-73, then went on to attend Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches from 1976-79. They married a year later in Nacogdoches and bought a home there the following year.

But in 1987, the bank foreclosed on the home. Investigators said that year they both obtained birth certificate records for the dead infants and unlawfully assumed their identities. Primrose obtained a driver's license under the assumed name, and Morrison obtained a state ID card. Both also obtained social security cards.

The following year, they remarried under the assumed identities in Austin, Texas, court documents alleged.

Six years later, prosecutors said Primrose fraudulently enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard, pretending to be 12 years younger than his true age. He served for 22 years and retired in 2016, when he began working as a Defense Department contractor, where he still works.

In addition to numerous passports obtained over the years, the couple applied for and received driver's licenses under the assumed names in Hawaii in recent years, starting in 2014, court documents alleged.

The couple lived in a Honolulu suburb in a two-bedroom bungalow, AP reported.

Furthermore, old photos showed the couple wearing uniforms of the former Russian KGB spy agency, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Muehleck said in court documents. Faded Polaroids showed each in uniform and were included in a motion to have them held, AP reported.

A “close associate” said Morrison lived in Romania while it was a Soviet bloc country, Muehleck said.

Morrison's attorney told AP her client never lived in Romania. She said Primrose tried the same jacket on as a joke and posed for photos in it. Even if the couple assumed new identities, attorney Megan Kau told AP, they have lived law-abiding lives for three decades.

“She wants everyone to know she’s not a spy,” Kau said. “This has all been blown way out of proportion. It’s government overreaching.”

Primrose obtained a security clearance with the Coast Guard and as a defense contractor. That clearance gave him access to information that would be “enormously valuable to our enemies,” Honolulu defense attorney Kevin O’Grady told AP. He is not involved in the case.

“The Coast Guard has a unique perspective on our vulnerabilities,” he said, including how to infiltrate the country through water ports. Hawaii, a major military center, “is a prime target for a lot of espionage and such,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.