got and stayed high, every minute he could, he says. hanging out down by the river in idaho falls with all those kids his mother warned him about. and that he said, is how his name came up after the murder of angie dodge. when police were scouring the city for suspects who might match that the any left behind after the murder. so, to, he was asked to submit the any. did you think anything of that? no. i had no rhyme, no reason to be scared. and then? not a word. for months. until, you ll recall, january of 1997, when was tapp brought in for questioning after his friend ben hobbs was arrested for a nevada sexual attack. which police said, with similar to the murder of angie dodge. i didn t know what i was burying brought in for. you didn t connect it with the angie thing at all? no, i thought i was going in for drugs. as you ve yet seen over the course of several weeks, chris tapp soon went from saying he
appeal, denied. the court is lying, but the truth will set me through free someday. and you re convinced of that? as the years go on, yeah. there were more motions. more hearings. but always the same result. and then, two decades after his conviction in march, 2017, a stunning twist. prosecutors offered chris tapp a plea deal. downgrading his conviction to second degree murder and vacating his rape conviction. chris had a decision to make. this was not an exoneration. he d still be a killer in the eyes of the law. but he d be out of prison. he accepted and was re-sentenced to time served. no probation or parole. after 20 years behind bars, he left the hearing a free man. how are you feeling? overwhelmed. completely, totally
committed the murder together. the detectives spent hours, literally, trying to drag the name of that third man out of tapp the. and when carroll saw the tape, we ll, you watch it. the name, nothing comes to my head. it was in it wasn t russ. i mean. mike is his first name, okay? mickelson, mickelson. by the time he had gone through all those tapes, but did you think about chris tapp the man you believed all those years how could they do this to me? how could they managed to keep someone in prison for all these years and it s a possibility that it s not there? and after that eureka moment, carol dodge made a decision. she would do more than search to find for her daughters killer. she would actively work to free christopher tapp the only man convicted of the murder. i think that chris is case truly got taken seriously after i made my contact with boise
welcome back to the world. viking. exploring the world in comfort. once again. there comes a time in every tale to meet the man at the center of the story. and here he is. christopher tapp. no longer the aimless pot head
overwhelmed. for a doctor greg hampikian of the idaho innocence project, the answer to who killed angie dodge still rested in science. he said that dna left at the scene points to the simplest explanation. not to the three men. not even to. just one. secrets can be kept, but science reveals those secrets. somebody went in and committed a typical, violent, rape murder. and left typical evidence. there s no other person there by danny. where is he? and then, in may 2019, a long awaited breakthrough. using the newest advancement known as genetic genealogy, investigators finally matched their dna. today we re here to announce we ve arrested brian leigh dripps. it belonged to a man named brian dripps, a neighbor who lived across the street from angie when she was killed.