Larry Lowe Charged with Kidnapping After 1,200-Mile Ordeal

Larry Evans Lowe, a 45-year-old man from Midfield, Alabama, with a prior murder conviction, was charged federally in July 2025 with kidnapping a Texas woman and her family at gunpoint and forcing them to drive him roughly 1,200 miles from El Paso to Bessemer, Alabama. The Larry Lowe kidnapping case is built on a federal criminal complaint describing days of threats, gunfire inside the vehicle, and physical and sexual abuse of the victims during the cross-country trip.

How The Kidnapping Began

Lowe met the woman on Facebook and traveled to her home in El Paso, where he stayed for about 17 days. On July 14, 2025, the two argued and she asked him to leave, offering to buy him a bus ticket back to Bessemer.¹

Lowe became irate when he learned he would have to spend the night at the bus terminal. The woman was driving him to the station with her two young sons and her brother in the car when Lowe pulled a gun and fired at the brother. One of the children redirected the weapon, and the bullet grazed the brother’s face before lodging in the car door. Lowe fired a second shot through the windshield and ordered the woman at gunpoint to drive him to Alabama.²

What Happened During The 1,200-Mile Drive

Prosecutors say Lowe kept a gun on the passengers for the length of the trip and fired at least four shots inside the vehicle. The woman was only permitted to stop for gas. He repeatedly threatened to kill her and her children.²

The complaint alleges that Lowe punched one of the children in the face and broke the child’s nose, and threatened to shoot out the kneecaps of another. He is accused of pouring alcohol on the woman, burning her with cigarettes, trying to set her hair on fire, urinating on her in front of her children, exposing himself to the children, and forcing the woman to perform sex acts on her brother under threat of killing her son.¹

How It Ended And How Lowe Was Caught

When the group reached Bessemer, Lowe forced the woman to withdraw $400 from an ATM. She then drove him to his family’s home, where relatives convinced him to let the victims go. No law enforcement rescue occurred during the ordeal. After Lowe got out of the car, the family drove back to Texas and contacted authorities.²

Two days after the kidnapping ended, on July 16, 2025, Lowe was arrested in the Birmingham area on unrelated charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and drug possession. He was booked into the Jefferson County Jail on July 18. The FBI’s El Paso office opened a kidnapping investigation on July 17, and Lowe was transferred into federal custody on July 28, 2025.²³

The Federal Case

The case was prosecuted in the Northern District of Texas under case number 4:25-cr-00238. A grand jury returned a four-count indictment with a forfeiture notice on September 23, 2025. A final judgment was entered on February 9, 2026, and an amended judgment followed on March 27, 2026. The specific terms of the plea agreement and the sentence imposed are not detailed in the publicly accessible docket entries.⁴

Lowe’s Prior Record

Lowe’s history of violence goes back decades. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to murder in Jefferson County’s Bessemer Cutoff and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.²

While serving that sentence at St. Clair Correctional Facility, Lowe was identified as the suspect in the stabbing death of a fellow inmate, 43-year-old Jammy Demond Bell, on August 11, 2013. The Alabama Department of Corrections investigated the killing. Available reporting does not indicate whether Lowe was ever formally charged in Bell’s death.⁵⁶

Lowe served roughly 25 to 27 years on the murder conviction before his release. The exact date and conditions of that release have not been publicly reported. Within a relatively short period afterward, he was arrested on the firearms and drug charges in July 2025, followed by the federal kidnapping charge arising from the El Paso incident.¹

1
WBRC. Convicted Murderer From Bessemer Charged With Kidnapping Woman, Family in Texas, Forcing Her to Drive Him to Alabama
2
AL.com. Convicted Alabama Killer Accused of Kidnapping Family in Texas, Forcing Them to Drive to Bessemer
3
PACER Monitor. USA v. Lowe, 2:25-mj-00495
4
CourtListener. United States v. Lowe, 4:25-cr-00238
5
AL.com. State Inmate Stabbed to Death at St. Clair Correctional Facility
6
Gadsden Times. Inmate Stabbed to Death Sunday at St. Clair Prison