American couple arrested after spending 35 years under false identities
Sylvie Claire / July 29, 2022
Two Americans were charged on Thursday, July 28, 2022 by the American justice. They would have spent 35 years of their life using the names of dead children. Suspicions of espionage weigh on them.
U.S. justice has charged a couple who lived for 35 years under the names of dead babies with identity theft, a case tinged with suspicions of espionage. Walter Primrose and his wife Gwynn Morrison, both born in 1955, were arrested in Hawaii last Friday and charged this Thursday, July 28, 2022.
According to court documents, a search of their home turned up an old photo of the couple dressed in KGB uniforms.
A federal judge ruled Thursday in a telephone hearing that the 60-year-old was a flight risk and ordered his continued detention. His wife will appear before the judge next week.
According to the indictment, they studied together in the 1970s in Texas, married there in 1980 and for some unknown reason assumed the identities of Bobby Fort and Julie Montague in 1987, babies who died years earlier and are buried in nearby cemeteries.
They remarried in 1988 under these new names. In 1994, he became a Coast Guard officer as Bobby Fort, served in that capacity for 20 years before taking a job with a Department of Defense contractor.
Over the years, they obtained numerous documents under their false identities, including driver's licenses and several passports. They were finally spotted in 2018 trying to enroll in the military and Coast Guard social security system.
The indictment does not allege espionage charges, but a document filed in opposition to their bail suggests a complex case.
Federal agents seized letters addressed to the defendants 'under names other than Bobby, Julie, Walter or Gwynn, suggesting they were using multiple aliases, and found photos of them wearing KGB uniforms, writes federal prosecutor Clare Connors.
A relative of Gwynn Morrison told agents that she had lived in Romania when the country was still in the communist bloc, she adds.
As for her husband, as a Pentagon contractor, he had to report all his trips abroad and failed to do so for several trips to Canada, the prosecutor continued.
Mrs. Morrison's lawyer, Megan Kau, said in a brief comment to AFP that her client does not recognize the facts that are imputed to her.