Photographs and Interview by Camille Farrah Lenain
Written by Carla Canning
Love Beyond Bars is a series of visual essays about love and incarceration from The Marshall Project.
The love story of Larry Moses and Gloria Armour began over a decade before the wrongful conviction that stole nearly 30 years of his life. The New Orleans couple met in their 20s, when his brother — who was dating her sister — secretly arranged an encounter. “We hit it off just right,” says Armour, now 68. “I just liked his disposition and the way he had about himself.” They dated for about five years before drifting apart. Then Moses’ nightmare began.
In January 1994, at a 9th Ward intersection, Alma Causey and Daniel Ratliff were fatally shot during a robbery. Almost six months later, a man with serious mental illness named Frederick Stamps called the police and blamed Moses.
The state built its case on Stamps’ testimony and that of a woman who was looking out of her window during the crime. She said she’d heard the robber’s voice but couldn’t fully confirm that it belonged to Moses, whom she knew. She didn’t see the assailant’s face or even the shooting, and instead described a figure who did not match Moses’ height or build.
While no physical evidence tied Moses to the crime, and multiple witnesses testified that he had been with his family in another city, he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1995. He avoided a death sentence by a single vote.
Moses tried to appeal his conviction, but was unsuccessful. He contacted Innocence Project New Orleans in 2002, and the organization took his case 20 years later. Their investigation found information that hadn’t been disclosed to the defense and called into question the credibility and accuracy of the state’s eyewitness testimony. The group also revealed Stamps’ inconsistent accounts of the crime and that he’d admitted to others that he’d set Moses up due to what he described as a romantic rivalry.
Moses’ conviction was vacated on May 25, 2023, and the charges against him were dropped a month later. He got out of prison at age 68, having served 29 years, and is currently pursuing compensation for his wrongful conviction. In this interview, edited for clarity and length, the divorced father of three recalls how he and Armour first connected, how they reunited, and why, as she says, “there’s never a dull moment” when they’re together.
Gloria was 25 when I met her. I was 27, driving Cadillacs and had plenty money because I used to [do] factory work in the refinery. I recall myself being a little fast because most women liked the dudes that worked and had money. I flaunted myself. But [Gloria was] never on that thing of, Oh, you got to buy me this, and you got to buy me that. We were just in love. She always was open arms when I showed up.
I ain’t gonna tell [our breakup] story, but the last time I saw Gloria [before jail] it was a nice summer day. [Laughs.] I tried to smuggle her up, and she wasn’t going for it. I said to myself, “Well, I guess I got to put in a little time coming to see her.” And then the next thing I know, I was just lifted off to jail for something I didn’t do.
What really got me in the situation was helping a friend of mine. Her boyfriend was beating her up. I stopped it and he just put the unsolved murder charges on me. The police just didn’t do a thorough investigation. I think they were just clearing the books back then. It was like, We’re just going to put you over there, and you fight your way back out.
I was a bit bitter when it first happened to me. I even had to get the doctor to give me some sleeping pills after I got convicted. But then I started thinking. I took inventory of myself while I was in prison. I needed to find God. When I [did], it made me humble.
What most people don’t understand about life is lonesomeness is good for your soul, so you can find yourself. If I sat there and pitied myself, then I [couldn’t] help myself. So I just stood strong. I walked through the war saying, “I know my God got my back.” I always kept my sanity and my morals and principles when I was in prison. I used to tell [the men], “You should be fighting the system, not him.”
I had friends getting married up in prison, but I wasn’t doing it. That would be putting my family through the same thing I was going through. They were already in jail with me, worrying any time I didn’t call. Still, I ain’t never stopped wanting to have somebody’s love. I prayed for it.
She don’t believe me, but I always thought about Gloria. When the caseworker told me I’d be getting out, I still had six months. I’d sit on my little bunk playing music, and I’d ask myself, Who do I want to share my blessing with? It had to be Gloria. But I didn’t know where she was since I had been away, and people got displaced from the hurricanes.
When I finally got out of prison, I was living across the river in [a transitional] house [owned by Innocence Project New Orleans]. I could have taken Uber, but I wanted to ride the bus. I thought maybe I could recognize some of the people I’d grown up with. I used to catch the bus going down Broad. I’d get to American Street and think, My girl used to live right down the street. Well, God, will I ever bump into Gloria?
Then one day on the bus stop, while I was talking to two other people, this lady comes and sits right alongside me. I looked at her name tag, and it didn’t register. I kept talking, then she said, “That you, Larry?”
I turned and said, “Larry Moses!”
Then I said, “Gloria, that’s you?” right as [her coworker] was pulling up in a truck to get her. I told her, “You’re going to have to wait. I got to get your information before you leave.”
It’s hard to say exactly when this was because we were so happy, we weren’t paying attention to anything. But we’ve been back together for over a year and a half. We go to church on Sundays, and we go to friends’ churches. During the week, I come [home] from work, I take a shower, then me and Gloria sit in them two chairs out there and look at the interstate. Even though she can be fussy a little bit, she’s cool. We be laughing and playing with each other ‘til we go to bed. We have everything in the house we need, so this is our sanctuary. We can’t get hurt here.
We’re going to get married, [but] I don’t know exactly when. She’s set in her ways, and I’m set in my ways. Ain’t no sense in us getting married and six months later, we getting divorced or something. We’re going to make this work until the end of time. We’re like Bonnie and Clyde. That’s my baby there. That’s my all in all. God has been good to me and Gloria.
Camille Farrah Lenain is a French-Algerian documentary photographer who grew up in Paris. She relocated to New Orleans in 2013. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally, including at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Arab World Institute, Photoville and Les Rencontres d’Arles.
Carla Canning is an engagement journalist and associate editor at Prison Journalism Project. She previously worked on Life Inside as The Marshall Project’s Tow audience engagement fellow. At the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, she created a website guide for people visiting loved ones incarcerated in New York State prisons.
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