The anger just surged through me. Now, a mother turns detective. Her words to me, ill never forget were, i just want to know what happened to my daughter. Join in as she hunts for a killer and searches for the truth. I wanted to put my fists through the tv. Still brings my the hair up on my neck. The confession. 18 years old, amy dodge was eager to live life on her own terms finding a job, a new apartment, and then she was stabbed to death in her bedroom, within months, a local named christopher admitted to be one of the killers. A grizzly murder captured on videotape, but for her mom, the details on tape did not give her answers. In fact, they raised more questions. Heres keith morrison. They kept him here. Deep inside the multiple walls and the armed doors, the rolls and rolls of razor wire, the confessed stabber, convicted killer that stabbed a sweet woman all those years ago. Lucky to be alive, probably, given the nature of the crime and the appeal from the girls mother for the death sentence which made what he said later on very puzzling indeed. Its the only thing his mother has. Its her only child, let him go. Thats carol dodge, and the amazing story she told us began on the worst day of her life. It was a thursday, june 13th, scene of this accident. Midmorning. She placed a call to a beauty salon to talk to her daughter, angie. I dialled angies number at work, and a lady answered, and i said, this is carol dodge, angies mom, and she said, angies been found dead. I remember saying, god, no, please, no. This cant be real. It happened, turned out, the night before in the tiny second floor walkup where the independent 18yearold just started to live her life, stabbed to death, throat cut, and she was haunted with a conversation she had with angie that very week. She said, mom, i did something really stupid. Did you say, what did you do . No, i didnt want to pry. What was it that stupid . Did it lead to murder . Idaho falls, idaho, dazzling white Mormon Temple to anchor the town and signal the beacon, moral core of american virtue, great place to raise a family, three dodge boys, a girl named angie, whose birth occasion, brother brent remembers, the biggest celebration of all. That was a pinnacle of all for my parents to have a baby girl. She learned about independence early on. Who grew up busy and strong and stubborn. Nobody got in her face because she would take care of you. She was 511 and strong. But, of course, big could be a problem for a girl. As a teenager, she was too tall, too awkward. She struggled. To make it worse, her parents marriage fell apart. Thats when angie went and just made friends with whoever accepted her. Among her new friends, jessica martinez. We both had very poor image because we had weight problems, and we wanted to be accepted not for what we looked like, but for the people that we were. Reporter jessica has since turned out fine, of course, but back then, carol worried a lot about the new friends, didnt know they, like angie, had big plans. She wanted to go to college and just be the best person she could be. Reporter now, this this little apartment, angies life was over, and grief stricken and dazed endured a murder investigation. We clearly knew there was a relationship there because it was a crime of passion. Jared and ken brown were, back then, detectives in the idaho falls p. D. , and angies boyfriend was out of town. Her other friends . Seemed to have alibis too. So they turned to the physical evidence, like this bloody hand print on her stomach, must have been left after she was dead, they figured, when the killer did something that was beyond safe, pulled down the pants, shirt, and left a deposit of see men on her body, his mark, and dna. A lot of anger and humiliation involved in this. And frustration for the cops because that dna did not match any of their possible suspects. Month after month, they chased leads into disappointing dead ends, and all the while, carol dodge haunted the investigation, practically stalking the detectives, desperate for information, begging them to find the killer. I drove to the Police Department every day that they were open. And then one day, seven months later, dead of winter, january 97, an arrest next door in nevada broke the case open. In custody was one of the less savoring friends, there he is in the funeral, carrying flowers. Now she was charged with sexually assaulting a woman at knife point. Sound familiar . While detective ken brown rushed off to question him, the other detective spoke to his friends. Why do you think your down here . Honestly, i have no idea. One of whom was a 20yearold named Christopher Taft. He was no felon, but he was an admitted druggy and, what do you know, he had a bit of a history with exSchool Resource officer, now detective. He was in trouble a time or two . He was. Just trying to help him out. I trust you, and hopefully you trust me, okay . Yes, he said, trusted him, but didnt know anything about the murder. I didnt know anything about this. But i do not know, thats the truth. Making the statement, christopher went home in the clear, apparently. Days later, the detectives asked him to come downtown again. I told him, i says, what are you doing . I says this is a murder case. His mother, vera, understood what he did not, that her son was quite possibly talking himself into big trouble. He said, mom, i dont have anything to hide, and i want to tell them that i dont know anything. That did not quite work out that way. Before long, chris wrote a statement for police saying, ben hobbs said he killed her, and i laughed it off like he was just telling me a joke. Oh, but that was just the beginning. Over the next several weeks, he was in nine times, questioning him 20 hours. Even gave him an immunity deal, and thats when his story began to evolve. Yes, he admitted to being there when ben killed angie and held her down, he admitted, when ben stabbed her, and finally, he said, he stabbed her one himself. The motive . Revenge. Supposedly angie was meddling in bens marriage, and christopher did not like that one bit, so detectives confronted ben, who denied any part of the murder, and asked them a question about angie. Was she raped . Tell me. I dont know, if she was, we could figure it out. And low and behold, he was right. That dna result came back, and the semen on her body did not belong to ben or chris. Neither one of them. What went through your heads when the dna results came back showing the attacker was not ben hobbs . If youre going to nail it down to a word, its frustration. Detectives decided that did not mean chris was lying or theory of the crime was wrong. It could only mean, they decided, they had to expand the theory. Ben and chris were guilty. They were sure of it. That mystery dna had to come from a third man, third attacker, so they put chris back in the Interrogation Room asking, was a third man involved in the crime . And sure enough, chris said, yes, there was a third man. But no matter how many times detectives asked, he couldnt or wouldnt tell them who it was. So prosecutors made a decision. If he was not going to tell them the whole truth, he would not get his deal. Chris was charged with murder, but only chris. Not enough evidence to go after hobbs or anyone else. The announcement caught carol by surprise. Detectives kept her in the dark until now. One look at christopher in court, and she knew she wanted him dead. I mean, it was finally looking somebody in the eye, i thought was the devil who had taken my daughters life. Chris was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for angies murder and 20 years for rape. Which is when carols search began. Her own investigation filled with danger and surprise and troubling discoveries. One discovery so disturbing that angies mother reached out for help. Coming up the anger just serged through me. The search for the truth would hold some chilling surprises. Still brings the hair up on the back of my neck. When the confession continues. T, just hit me on the old horn. Man toms my best friend, but ever since he bought a new house. Tom its a 10 cover . Oh, okay. Didnt see that on the website. Hes been acting more and more like his dad. Come on, guys jump in the waters fine tom pritchard. How we doin . Hi, there. Tom pritchard. Can we get a round of jalapeno poppers for me and the boys, please . Ive been saving a lot of money with progressive lately, so. Progressive cant protect you from becoming your parents. But we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. But we can protect your home and auto when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie thats amore when the world seems to shine like youve had too much wine thats amore bells will ring ting a ling a ling ting a ling a ling more to love. Applebees new neighborhood pastas. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. I am a techie dad. N. I believe the best technology should feel effortless. Like magic. At comcast, its my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. My name is mike, im in Product Development at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. In the years after angie dodges murder, the man who confessed to taking part in the killing, Christopher Taft, was tucked away in state prison, az accomplice, tucked in prison for another felony was never charged with the murder, and Idaho Falls Police told the mother, carol, they still couldnt find the third man, the one who left dna on her body. Thats when carol become, her word, obsessed. If the police could not track down the daughters killer, well, then, she would. The anger just surged through me. And thats when i went to the streets, and i lit literally put 60,000 miles on my truck searches for the killer. Putting yourself in harms way. Zblo absolutely. I remember going to a place, you need to leave already somebody hurts you. I had gun put to my head one right. Leads that never worked out, but ended up in front of the apartment where she was murdered. I stared at that house, stared at windows, and tried to figure out how scared she must have been. Something else she couldnt stop doing . Reading police reports, practically memorizing them. I dont sleep, and i get up, and i just felt, what part of this dont i understand . Didnt make sense . None of it made sense. In one of the reports, she found a phrase, which, the more she read it, sounded out of play in the dna world. It was about pubic hairs, which, in addition to the semen was found on her body. It was written in the report as its similar or the same as the victim. I said its angies or its not. Its not either or. Not in todays scientific world. She read an arable about an internationally known dna expert that happened to live and work right in idaho. How does it feel to be recognized dna expert . Its fun. No, no, its fun, i did fruit flies and nobody invited me to talk on television. This is the expert, dr. Gray, a fruit fly study who now spreads his excitement to the university. The work is not all in the classroom, and, in fact, his path changed in 2004 when she was asked to test dna that led to an innocent man being freed from prison in georgia. The doctor wrote a book, and just like that, the doctor found a new calling. Hes now in high demand. In 2011, he was part of the team credited with freeing amanda knox, an American College student imprisoned in italy, and in his spare time, hes the founder and director of idahos Innocence Project. Its an unfortunate thing our name is innocence because, honestly, ive worked on, i think, 13 exonerations now, four of the ones in georgia, they found the actual perpetrator, so to those four guys, im the guilty project. So, now, the coincidence you just couldnt make up. The very week she left a phone message for the doctor asking for help, idaho Innocence Project had just taken on a new case. The case of the man convicted of killing carols daughter, and the doctor called her back. Her words to me, ill never forget were, i just want to know what happened to my daughter. And, you know, still brings the hair up on the back of my neck. Curiosity surprise you . The knowledge surprised me. Shes turned all of that love and devotion for her daughter into a very careful record of this case. So she read that report to him, the one that said the pubic hairs found were similar to or same as the victim. He goes, they are hers or they are not. Just as you thought. Well, where are the hairs . I said, i assume they are still in evidence. She called the idaho falls Police Department finding the hairs in the envelope in the Evidence Room where they were stored for years. They said the hairs were sent to the crime lab where state of the art dna tests could show that chris was there or ben was there at the crime scene, or that the entirety of the physical evidence was left by an unknown third man. That was the fundamental question that was huge, and the answer from the dna left no doubt. Its all one person who did this, in terms of the dna. One, killer. The science said there was no evidence there were three attackers in her apartment that night as the police said, but just one. And that remarkable news could be meaning only one thing according to the idaho Innocence Project. Chriss story was a false confession. He was not there. He was an innocent man. The theory of multiple killers . Ridiculous, he said. To imagine that there is a group of criminals who know about dna and are so careful, what did they do . Planted somebody elses semen and pubic hair and cleaned up their own dna . That conclusion that the killer was never caught came down like a hammer to the head on angies mother. I was extremely angry when they have dna, not once, but twice, that belongs to the same person and its not chris, something cease wrong. So what did you do . I met with the chief. I asked for copies. The videotapes, in which christopher confessed to taking part of the murder, in most accounts, she knew more about the case than anyone, but what she had not done was watch the more than 20 hours of the interrogati interrogation. Now, she did. Watched every minute. When she was done, she was a changed woman. Looking at a brand new case. Coming up theres times i wanted to put my fists through the tv. The tale of the tapes. What exactly had she found . When the confession continues. I switched to geico and saved hundreds. Excuse me. Winner thats a win. But its not the only reason i switched. Hi geico has licensed agents who i can reach 24 7. Great savings and round the Clock Service . Now thats a winwin. Winner. Winner. Yay me oh, hi good luck. Switch to geico®. Its a winwin. Experience the lexus rx with advanced safety, standard. Lease the 2018 rx 350 for 439 a month for 36 months. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. door bell rings its ohey. This is amazing. 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With humira, control is possible. That skills like teamwork, attention to detail, and Customer Service are critical to business success. Like the ones we teach here, every day. Welcome back to dateline extra. In the eyes of the doctor of the idaho Innocence Project, the dna evidence in the murder of angie dodge spoke loud and clear. There was just one killer. It was not Christopher Taft. Why, then, would chris confess to the crime . Police had no doubt he had told the truth, but did the interrogation tapes tell a different story . Here, again, is keith morrison. More than a dozen years after her daughters murder, the ground beyond her feet were quaking. Dna tests revealed none of imp kated confessed murder of christopher kaft, but pointed to a mystery man still at large. And the woman who relentlessly prodded the police to find her daughters killer began to doubt everything the detectives had been telling her. For 13 years, they had me confessed chris was the murder. They said, he confessed, he confessed. But, was it a real confession . She asked for, and got, a complete set of the videotape confessions. What she saw amazed her. By this time, she knew more than she did a decade before, knew, for example, the then detective, who ran the interviews, was a School Resource officer, wellknown to a young chris. I trust you, and hopefully you trust me, okay . Ferman told chris, trust me, chris, you got to trust me, okay, we go way back, chris. And i think that it was tied to respect adult, and he was a follower. He watched as chris insisted he knew nothing, and then she saw detectives as they are trained to do subtly make him an active apartment. Listen, for example, hypothetically, chris, you were there, okay . Okay. Hypothetically, chris, how do you think it happened . I remember chris saying, you mean, like a tv show . Next, police administered polygraph after polygraph with the same result, saying he was deseptemb decepti deceptive, and when promised immunity, the story about ben hobbs changed. Got a knife. Then just cut her. But, perhaps, what troubled her the most was seeing how confused taft was, even ten days after the first interviews, he still seemed not to know what house she lived in. Lived on the corner . On the block. Police kept correcting him. For a guy who took part in a murder, he seemed not to know much about the layout of her apartment. Its easier to draw it out. When asked to draw it, he couldnt do it. Detectives even showed him where the murder occurred. Happened here in the bedroom. Thats back here. Oh, yes, and there was more. Police had always told her that chris did things only a killer would know, location and position of angies body, the clothes she was wearing. Now, she could see for herself, on tape, the reason chris would know those things. She was stunned to see police had shown taft photos of the crime scene. If you dont remember it, this jogs your memory and well go from there. Theres t