Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #362 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Chris Tapp

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#362 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Chris Tapp · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Laura and I writer. I am here
0:06
Speaker 1: with an update on a case we shared with you
0:08
Speaker 1: back in season one of False Confessions. It's the story
0:12
Speaker 1: of a mother, Carol Dodge, and her relentless pursuit of
0:15
Speaker 1: justice for her daughter Angie. Now, when we first aired
0:18
Speaker 1: this story, the real perpetrator had been identified Brian Drips,
0:23
Speaker 1: But since we aired this story, Brian Drips has been
0:26
Speaker 1: tried and convicted, sentenced to twenty years to life for
0:30
Speaker 1: the murder of Angie Dodge. But while Brian Dripps was
0:33
Speaker 1: living as a freeman for twenty years, it was Chris
0:36
Speaker 1: Tapp who suffered in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
0:39
Speaker 1: No amount of money can ever make up for what
0:41
Speaker 1: Chris lost. But I'm glad to tell you that the
0:43
Speaker 1: State of Idaho settled Chris TAP's wrongful conviction case for
0:47
Speaker 1: over eleven million dollars. To Chris and Carol were replaying
0:51
Speaker 1: this story in your honor. Welcome to Wrongful Convictions Confessions.
1:01
Speaker 1: I'm Laura and I Writer.
1:02
Speaker 2: And I'm Steve Drissen.
1:04
Speaker 1: Today we're going to tell you about an Idaho man
1:06
Speaker 1: named Chris Tap. Chris was just twenty years old when
1:09
Speaker 1: he endured a mind bending twenty five hour interrogation that
1:14
Speaker 1: transformed him from an innocent into a confessed murderer. Fortunately
1:18
Speaker 1: for Chris, he found an indomitable champion in the victim's mother.
1:23
Speaker 1: She convinced police to use a revolutionary new method of
1:26
Speaker 1: DNA identification to exonerate Chris Tap and find her own
1:30
Speaker 1: daughter's killer.
1:39
Speaker 2: There are certain special people you meet in your life,
1:42
Speaker 2: people that I like to say are more evolved than
1:45
Speaker 2: the rest of us, people that really inspire you. And
1:50
Speaker 2: Carol Dodge is one of those people. It's one of
1:53
Speaker 2: the few times in my career as a lawyer where
1:56
Speaker 2: someone from the victim's family has asked me to investigate
2:01
Speaker 2: an injustice and for a crime victim who was so
2:05
Speaker 2: invested in Chris's guilt that she wanted him to get
2:08
Speaker 2: the death penalty, to evolve to a place where she
2:12
Speaker 2: was thinking he might be innocent. That just blew me away.
2:16
Speaker 2: How was it that a lay person could look at
2:19
Speaker 2: these interrogation tapes and see all of the problems, all
2:24
Speaker 2: of the coercion, all of the leading questions, all of
2:28
Speaker 2: the fact feeding. When law enforcement officers on the Idaho
2:33
Speaker 2: Falls Police Department couldn't see it themselves.
2:36
Speaker 1: And it shows that wrongful convictions affect more than just
2:40
Speaker 1: the defendants. It's also the victim's families, the survivors of
2:43
Speaker 1: these horrible attacks, who are being fed aligne about an
2:47
Speaker 1: innocent person being guilty.
2:49
Speaker 2: It wasn't easy. She had help from a lot of
2:52
Speaker 2: other people, but it was her persistence and her desire
2:57
Speaker 2: for knowledge that ultimately changed the course of this say.
3:03
Speaker 1: Kristap's story starts in Idaho Falls, a town of about
3:07
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people in southeastern Idaho, about two hours
3:10
Speaker 1: north of Yellowstone National Park. Idaho Falls is a beautiful place.
3:15
Speaker 1: There's mountains on the horizon and the Snake River cut
3:18
Speaker 1: straight through town. Gorgeous though it may be, the town
3:22
Speaker 1: was wrecked by terrible ugliness nearly twenty four years ago.
3:27
Speaker 1: In June nineteen ninety six, Idaho Falls resident Angie Dodge
3:31
Speaker 1: was eighteen years old. She graduated from high school the
3:34
Speaker 1: year before, a head of schedule with honors, and life
3:37
Speaker 1: was just beginning for her. She was working two jobs,
3:40
Speaker 1: taking a few classes at Idaho State, becoming independent. In fact,
3:45
Speaker 1: Angie had just recently moved into her first apartment, the
3:48
Speaker 1: upper floor of a little frame house on Eye Street
3:52
Speaker 1: where she lived by herself. But on the morning of Thursday,
3:56
Speaker 1: June thirteenth, Angie didn't show up for her day job
3:59
Speaker 1: at a local buse supply store. A friend stopped by
4:02
Speaker 1: her apartment to make sure she was okay, but by
4:04
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock that friend was frantically dialing nine to one one.
4:09
Speaker 1: She'd found Angie Dodge lying face up on her bedroom floor,
4:13
Speaker 1: half naked and clearly dead. Angie's head was against the
4:17
Speaker 1: bedroom wall with her legs outstretched. Next to her, there
4:20
Speaker 1: was a basket of stuffed animals, including a teddy bear,
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Speaker 1: specked in blood. She'd been stabbed fourteen times and her
4:28
Speaker 1: throat had been cut.
4:29
Speaker 2: She was nearly decapitated. Most of the apartment was undisturbed,
4:35
Speaker 2: so all of the activity between the assailant and Angie
4:39
Speaker 2: took place in her bedroom. The crime scene did not
4:42
Speaker 2: suggest a prolonged struggle. Angie was six feet tall, and
4:47
Speaker 2: she had a reputation of not taking guph from anybody.
4:51
Speaker 2: I mean, she would have been the kind of victim
4:55
Speaker 2: to have fought back, and she did have a few
4:58
Speaker 2: defensive wounds on her arms and her wrists. The police
5:02
Speaker 2: theorized that she had been attacked in her sleep and
5:05
Speaker 2: quickly overwhelmed. But who would want to hurt Angie Dodge.
5:10
Speaker 1: The police assured Angie's family, including her mom Carol, that
5:13
Speaker 1: the killer had left damning evidence behind. Seaman left on
5:17
Speaker 1: Angie's body yielded a full DNA profile, but police ran
5:22
Speaker 1: the profile through the state and national DNA databases and
5:26
Speaker 1: got no hits. They compared it against Angie's male friends
5:30
Speaker 1: and family members, still no hits, and as summer turned
5:34
Speaker 1: to fall and the temperatures dropped, the case went cold too.
5:38
Speaker 1: The case stayed cold until January nineteen ninety seven, when
5:42
Speaker 1: an acquaintance of Angie's named Ben Hobbs was arrested in
5:45
Speaker 1: Nevada for a knife point sexual assault. Police started questioning
5:49
Speaker 1: Ben about whether he was involved in the attack on Angie,
5:52
Speaker 1: which seemed to be similar, but Ben insisted he had
5:56
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Angie Dodge and eventually lawyered up.
6:00
Speaker 1: So instead, police turned to his friend, Chris Tap to
6:03
Speaker 1: see if they could get some dirt on Ben.
6:05
Speaker 2: At the time, Chris was twenty years old, maybe a
6:08
Speaker 2: year or two older than Angie. In fact, he and
6:11
Speaker 2: Angie and Ben were part of a young group of
6:14
Speaker 2: people who hung out on the trails along the Snake
6:17
Speaker 2: River and partied from time to time.
6:19
Speaker 1: This group of friends called themselves the river Rats crew,
6:22
Speaker 1: and police figured that if one of the river Rats
6:25
Speaker 1: had attacked Angie, then the others would know about it.
6:28
Speaker 1: Not only was Chris Tap a river Rat, but one
6:31
Speaker 1: of the police officers had known Chris for years. He
6:34
Speaker 1: figured it'd be easy to use their trusting relationship to
6:37
Speaker 1: make Chris give up whatever he knew about Ben Idaho
6:41
Speaker 1: fall of the police decided to question Chris, and here
6:44
Speaker 1: come the interrogations, not one, not two, but eventually nine
6:49
Speaker 1: of them, spread out over nearly four weeks, for a
6:52
Speaker 1: total of twenty five hours of questioning. The statements that
6:56
Speaker 1: police get archaotic, confused, jumbled, and the tactics police used, well,
7:02
Speaker 1: they're a recipe for wrongful conviction. It all began for
7:08
Speaker 1: Chris on Tuesday, January seventh. The officer starts by asking
7:12
Speaker 1: Chris about Ben's possible role in Angie's death. Chris denies
7:17
Speaker 1: knowing anything about it, over and over again.
7:20
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm going to be.
7:21
Speaker 4: Straight up and truful with you.
7:22
Speaker 2: If I did anything know about this, I would.
7:25
Speaker 4: Say what I do on them. That's all true, not lying.
7:29
Speaker 1: But the police have an unsolved murder on their hands,
7:32
Speaker 1: and Chris's possible knowledge about Ben Hobbs was the only
7:36
Speaker 1: lead they had. They try to create leverage with Chris
7:39
Speaker 1: by implying that he's withholding crucial information and that there
7:43
Speaker 1: could be consequences if the investigators don't get what they need.
7:47
Speaker 1: The deeper they get into the interview, the more police
7:50
Speaker 1: up the pressure. They tell Chris that he has to
7:54
Speaker 1: tell them something about Ben.
7:56
Speaker 2: Now, this officer was not a stranger to Chris. He
7:58
Speaker 2: was a school resource officer whom Chris had known throughout
8:02
Speaker 2: his life, and one of the tactics this officer used
8:06
Speaker 2: was the false friend technique, suggesting that he was there
8:10
Speaker 2: to help Chris to see him through this problem.
8:13
Speaker 3: I should be.
8:14
Speaker 5: Saying this, but I kind of close to you. I've
8:17
Speaker 5: got to know not on these crimes. I could go
8:20
Speaker 5: out to do that.
8:22
Speaker 1: And the police suggests that if Chris tells them something
8:24
Speaker 1: about Ben, then they'd pull some strings that even though
8:28
Speaker 1: he's getting dragged into the investigation, they'd protect him. He
8:31
Speaker 1: wouldn't have anything to worry about. It's a theme they'd
8:34
Speaker 1: go on to repeat again and again, I.
8:38
Speaker 3: Will get everything the kid.
8:41
Speaker 1: Chris continues to insist that he doesn't have anything to
8:44
Speaker 1: tell them, and eventually the cops let him go home,
8:47
Speaker 1: But a few days later, on Friday, January tenth, the
8:50
Speaker 1: police are back. They still suspect that Chris is withholding
8:55
Speaker 1: information to protect his friend. They need more leverage, so
8:59
Speaker 1: they give him a polygraph test and they tell him
9:02
Speaker 1: that he flunked it.
9:04
Speaker 2: It was extremely painful to watch because you see someone's
9:08
Speaker 2: will being broken over and over and over again by
9:13
Speaker 2: these two interrogators, primarily their friend, the school resource officer
9:18
Speaker 2: and the polygrapher.
9:19
Speaker 1: They also tell Chris that by covering for his friend,
9:22
Speaker 1: Chris is making himself an accessory to murder, and the
9:26
Speaker 1: police start warning him that the law treats cover ups
9:30
Speaker 1: the same as the crime. In other words, Chris Tap
9:33
Speaker 1: is now facing the gas chamber.
9:36
Speaker 5: Are looking at it. The possibility getting charged with the
9:39
Speaker 5: murder one which max penalty is dead middle a penalty
9:43
Speaker 5: is life, a person footnot row, and save your time period.
9:49
Speaker 4: To save your life.
9:50
Speaker 2: The thread of death penalty is in the air.
9:52
Speaker 1: Chris is terrified and so he starts to make things
9:56
Speaker 1: up in order to please his interrogators and save himself
10:00
Speaker 1: from a death sentence. He tells a story in which
10:02
Speaker 1: he'd heard Ben Hobbes admit to killing Angie, and the
10:06
Speaker 1: cops eat it up. By now they can't wait to
10:10
Speaker 1: take Ben down for rape and murder, with Chris as
10:12
Speaker 1: the star member of their team.
10:15
Speaker 2: The school resource officer tells Chris at one point that
10:19
Speaker 2: he really wants Chris to help in nailing Ben Hobbes
10:24
Speaker 2: so that he could drop kick Ben Hobbes through the
10:30
Speaker 2: goalposts of life.
10:32
Speaker 1: Toxic masculinity, anybody, Huh.
10:37
Speaker 4: I'm serious? Heart attack.
10:39
Speaker 1: Detectives keep pushing for more details, and they help Chris
10:43
Speaker 1: out by giving him hints about what they think happened.
10:46
Speaker 1: They tell Chris, for example, that Angie had been stabbed
10:49
Speaker 1: with a knife. Pretty soon Chris agrees and says he
10:53
Speaker 1: heard Ben describe using a knife. But even as Chris
10:57
Speaker 1: regurgitates these details, he's freaking out, crying hard, terrified that
11:02
Speaker 1: whatever he says won't satisfy his interrogators, that instead of
11:06
Speaker 1: helping police drop kick Ben, he'll end up being the football.
11:11
Speaker 1: But the cops still don't seem convinced, and they start
11:14
Speaker 1: asking whether the DNA left on Angie's body might belong
11:18
Speaker 1: to Chris. He rallies, take my DNA. It ain't going
11:21
Speaker 1: to be me. He says, I was never inside Angie's apartment.
11:27
Speaker 1: The police let Chris go home again, but they still
11:30
Speaker 1: think he's not telling them everything he knows about Ben Hobbes.
11:34
Speaker 1: So the next day, January eleventh, they arrest Chris and
11:38
Speaker 1: charge him as an accessory who helped cover up Angie
11:41
Speaker 1: Dodge's murder.
11:43
Speaker 2: And that threat or suggestion of the gas chamber that's
11:47
Speaker 2: becoming realer and realer to Chris.
11:50
Speaker 1: Pretty soon, the promise of help gets more real too.
11:53
Speaker 1: Chris gets a lawyer, and that lawyer negotiates an immunity agreement.
11:58
Speaker 1: Under the deal, Chris would escape charges if he provides
12:02
Speaker 1: information about who raped and killed Angie Dodge. But it's
12:06
Speaker 1: got to be information that the police will believe, and
12:09
Speaker 1: the police tell him that in order to go free,
12:12
Speaker 1: they expect him to say he was present during the attack,
12:16
Speaker 1: in their words, get us up close. If he does that,
12:20
Speaker 1: they suggest he can go home. They'll leave him alone,
12:23
Speaker 1: and we can't help you now. Chris has no choice,
12:27
Speaker 1: but to tell lies placing him inside Angie's bedroom, and
12:31
Speaker 1: as police keep pushing, Chris has to take the story
12:34
Speaker 1: further and further. By the very end, he agrees that
12:39
Speaker 1: he slashed Angie with a knife and held her down
12:42
Speaker 1: while Ben raped her.
12:46
Speaker 2: To cut Angie Dodge across the.
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Speaker 5: Right breast with the knife.
12:50
Speaker 1: Is even though Chris now has agreed to say he
12:53
Speaker 1: was directly involved, he can't get the story right. He
12:57
Speaker 1: doesn't know basic facts like the layout of Angie's apartment
13:01
Speaker 1: or what room the attack occurred in. In fact, at
13:04
Speaker 1: one point, the police take Chris to Eye Street so
13:08
Speaker 1: he can point out Angie's home and walk them through
13:10
Speaker 1: the crime scene, but he can't even tell them which
13:13
Speaker 1: house she lived in. He guesses that she lived on
13:16
Speaker 1: the corner when she really lived in the middle of
13:19
Speaker 1: the block.
13:19
Speaker 2: This should have been a huge red flag to these officers.
13:23
Speaker 2: He had previously told them that they won't find his
13:26
Speaker 2: DNA there because he'd never been to Angie's apartment. But
13:29
Speaker 2: they are stuck in the Chris tap box and they
13:35
Speaker 2: can't get out of it.
13:36
Speaker 1: They refuse to get out of it, even when a
13:39
Speaker 1: big problem emerges about a week later.
13:41
Speaker 2: It's a problem we've seen in case after case. By
13:45
Speaker 2: January eighteenth, the police have done DNA testing and the
13:49
Speaker 2: results are back. Their DNA from the crime scene does
13:53
Speaker 2: not belong to either Ben Hobbs or Chris Tap.
13:57
Speaker 1: Neither of them could have been Angie's rapist, and police
14:00
Speaker 1: accept that Ben Hobbs had nothing to do with this crime.
14:04
Speaker 1: But Chris, on the other hand, he had confessed to
14:07
Speaker 1: being there, and why would anyone confess unless they were guilty.
14:13
Speaker 1: The police decide they'll never know whose DNA was left
14:16
Speaker 1: at the crime scene, but they stick to their belief
14:20
Speaker 1: Chris was involved. They conclude that he's been protecting the
14:24
Speaker 1: identity of the real rapist this whole time. They're furious
14:28
Speaker 1: and the immunity deal is yanked off the table. Chris
14:32
Speaker 1: Tap is charged with first degree murder and sexual assault,
14:36
Speaker 1: and the county prosecutor announces that he'll seek the death penalty.
14:42
Speaker 1: At Chris's trial, prosecutors show the jury one brief clip
14:45
Speaker 1: from the interrogation Cherry picked from twenty five hours of videotape.
14:51
Speaker 1: This excerpt makes his confession seem spontaneous and voluntary, and
14:56
Speaker 1: on May twenty eighth, nineteen ninety eight, Chris tap is
15:00
Speaker 1: convicted of the rape and murder of Angie Dodge. This
15:17
Speaker 1: is where the hero of our story first comes in
15:20
Speaker 1: Angie's mother, Carol Dodge, a heartbroken but ferocious woman. Carol
15:26
Speaker 1: was tortured by the thought that one of Angie's attackers
15:29
Speaker 1: was still free, the one who had raped her, and
15:33
Speaker 1: Carol believed Chris knew who the rapist was, so when
15:37
Speaker 1: the time came for sentencing, Carol Dodge begged the judge
15:40
Speaker 1: to give Chris the death penalty. When the judge gave
15:43
Speaker 1: him life in prison instead, Carol broke down sobbing to
15:47
Speaker 1: her justice hadn't been served. Carol Dodge was right, justice
15:53
Speaker 1: hadn't been served, but the failures here were more profound
15:57
Speaker 1: and troubling than even she imagined at first. For years,
16:00
Speaker 1: an unanswered question remained at the heart of Angie Dodge's case.
16:05
Speaker 1: Whose DNA had been left on her body?
16:09
Speaker 2: The investigation had stalled, and Carol's frustration was going through
16:13
Speaker 2: the roof intol. One day, about twelve or thirteen years
16:18
Speaker 2: after Angie's death, Carol decided to take the matter into
16:22
Speaker 2: her own hands, and the first thing she wanted to
16:26
Speaker 2: look at were the videotapes of Chris TAP's interrogation.
16:30
Speaker 1: It's the first time she's seen these tapes from start
16:32
Speaker 1: to finish, and as she watches them, she's growing angrier
16:35
Speaker 1: and angrier because those tapes are making her think that
16:39
Speaker 1: Chris Tap might be innocent. Carol starts doing research online
16:43
Speaker 1: about false confessions, and whose name comes up, but Steve Drisen.
16:48
Speaker 1: She picks up the phone and calls them.
16:51
Speaker 2: Now, I'll never forget this. I was sitting at my
16:53
Speaker 2: desk one afternoon. It was February twenty second, twenty thirteen,
16:59
Speaker 2: and the phone ran and on the other end was
17:02
Speaker 2: Carol Dodge. Now I knew who Carol Dodge was. I
17:06
Speaker 2: had read about the cap case. I had seen Carol
17:10
Speaker 2: on an episode of Dateline, but I had never received
17:14
Speaker 2: a call from a crime victim before. Asking for my assistance,
17:20
Speaker 2: she said, would you mind reviewing and analyzing these interrogation videos?
17:25
Speaker 2: Who could say no to Carol Dodge.
17:28
Speaker 1: Carol sent the videotapes and Steve watched them all. He
17:32
Speaker 1: wrote an expert report deeming Chris Tapp's confessions unreliable. But
17:37
Speaker 1: even as Steve and Carroll worked together, others were starting
17:40
Speaker 1: to raise questions too. An advocacy group called Judges for
17:45
Speaker 1: Justice started pushing to reopen the investigation. Two former FBI
17:50
Speaker 1: agents reviewed the case and concluded that the Idaho fall
17:53
Speaker 1: of Police investigation was deeply flawed, and an internationally recognized
17:58
Speaker 1: expert concluded that that Chris Tapp's polygraph had been a sham.
18:03
Speaker 1: The results, he said, weren't worth the paper they were
18:06
Speaker 1: written on.
18:07
Speaker 2: Things were starting to congeal around the idea that Chris
18:11
Speaker 2: was wrongfully convicted. Chris TAP's own attorneys and representatives of
18:16
Speaker 2: the Idaho Innocence Project were beginning to push the innocence
18:20
Speaker 2: narrative in court.
18:23
Speaker 1: What the team really needed was more forensic testing to
18:26
Speaker 1: show that Chris taps DNA was nowhere in Angie Dodge's bedroom.
18:31
Speaker 1: Under previous Idaho law, defendants like Chris could only seek
18:35
Speaker 1: DNA testing during the year immediately following conviction, but that
18:40
Speaker 1: restriction was lifted in twenty ten and Chris's team jumped
18:44
Speaker 1: at the opportunity. They had additional testing done on some
18:48
Speaker 1: other things from Angie's bedroom, that Teddy bear with the
18:51
Speaker 1: blood on it, and some articles of her clothing. What
18:54
Speaker 1: was found the same DNA profile as the person who
18:58
Speaker 1: had left his seamen. We now had multiple DNA hits
19:02
Speaker 1: to the same guy. While we didn't know who that
19:05
Speaker 1: guy was, we did know he wasn't Chris Tap. Based
19:13
Speaker 1: on all these new discoveries, Carol Dodge becomes convinced that
19:16
Speaker 1: Chris Tap is innocent, and she starts bringing pressure to
19:20
Speaker 1: bear on the local police department to release Chris and
19:23
Speaker 1: find her daughter's actual killer. In May twenty sixteen, Chris
19:27
Speaker 1: TAP's lawyer filed a post conviction petition alleging that new
19:31
Speaker 1: evidence had cast doubt on the reliability of TAP's confession,
19:34
Speaker 1: and pretty soon an enormous collection of forces was pushing
19:38
Speaker 1: the state of Idaho to do the right thing. Judges
19:42
Speaker 1: for Justice was releasing expert reports and calling for Chris's release,
19:46
Speaker 1: The Idaho Innocence Project was talking about the new DNA results,
19:49
Speaker 1: and the Idaho Falls Post Register, the local newspaper, was
19:53
Speaker 1: hammering the prosecutor to release Chris. One local journalist became
19:57
Speaker 1: particularly invested in the case. His name is Brian Clark.
20:01
Speaker 6: I'm the opinion editor of the Post Register in Idaho Falls,
20:05
Speaker 6: and I'm a former reporter there. I first heard about
20:09
Speaker 6: the case shortly before Judges for Justice started releasing their
20:13
Speaker 6: reports about it. My editor approached me and said, I've
20:18
Speaker 6: got a gift for you. It's not going to feel
20:20
Speaker 6: like a gift, but I promise it is, And he
20:22
Speaker 6: introduced me to the Dodge case and the Tap conviction.
20:26
Speaker 1: Even the Innocence Project in New York had joined the fight,
20:30
Speaker 1: but no one was pushing harder than Carol Dodge. It
20:33
Speaker 1: takes an army sometimes, and she was the general Lisimo.
20:37
Speaker 6: An example of her tenacity you can actually see in
20:40
Speaker 6: the architecture of the police station. There are a pair
20:43
Speaker 6: of doors that are in between the sort of main
20:46
Speaker 6: lobby area and the area where the detectives and other
20:50
Speaker 6: police are. The reason they were put in is that
20:53
Speaker 6: Carol Dodge would show up at the police station, walk
20:56
Speaker 6: right past the front desk and into the chief's office
20:59
Speaker 6: and start demanding that he you know, what are you
21:02
Speaker 6: doing to find my daughter's killer? And so they finally
21:05
Speaker 6: had to put indoors to keep her from doing that.
21:07
Speaker 6: They're referred to as the Carol Doors.
21:09
Speaker 1: Eventually, prosecutors decide that they're not yet ready to exonerate Chris,
21:13
Speaker 1: but they would agree based on this new DNA evidence
21:16
Speaker 1: that Chris should be granted immediate release. So in twenty seventeen,
21:21
Speaker 1: Chris Tap walked out of prison, not yet exonerated, but
21:25
Speaker 1: a freeman after spending twenty years behind bars.
21:28
Speaker 6: You see all the evidence stack up and it becomes
21:30
Speaker 6: clear the guys spent twenty years behind bars for something
21:34
Speaker 6: he didn't do, and that did keep me up at nights. Frankly,
21:38
Speaker 6: after working on it for years, I did not think
21:40
Speaker 6: it was going to be remedied. So it was really
21:43
Speaker 6: great to watch them take those handcuffs off. That made
21:46
Speaker 6: me really happy. The first two people to give him
21:48
Speaker 6: a hug was his mother, Vera and Carol. They hugged
21:52
Speaker 6: and they were both crying, and it was just really remarkable.
21:57
Speaker 2: It was a bittersweet moment. Dodge was relieved that Chris
22:01
Speaker 2: had been released, but she was also concerned would the
22:05
Speaker 2: Idaho Falls police and prosecutors now give up the search
22:08
Speaker 2: for Andy's killer. There was no way she was going
22:11
Speaker 2: to allow that to happen.
22:15
Speaker 1: Usually, in these cases, the DNA profile eventually gets matched
22:19
Speaker 1: and it's the identification of the real killer that leads
22:22
Speaker 1: to full exoneration. But this wasn't happening for christ Tap.
22:26
Speaker 1: The single DNA profile left at the scene was run
22:29
Speaker 1: again and again through the National DNA database, but it
22:33
Speaker 1: kept coming up dry. You see, profiles get added to
22:36
Speaker 1: that database only when people are arrested or charged with
22:39
Speaker 1: certain serious offenses. Clearly, whoever had done this to Angie
22:42
Speaker 1: Dodge hadn't reoffended, at least not at the level of
22:45
Speaker 1: severity that would lead to his DNA being included in
22:48
Speaker 1: that database. But that didn't stop Carroll. She wasn't going
22:52
Speaker 1: to arrest until that mystery DNA was identified, and she
22:56
Speaker 1: wanted Idaho police to try a brand new DNA identification
23:00
Speaker 1: technique called genetic genealogy. Genetic genealogy is basically the use
23:14
Speaker 1: of DNA evidence in combination with traditional genealogical information. If
23:20
Speaker 1: you can identify whose DNA it is, at least you
23:23
Speaker 1: might be able to identify that person's family tree. This
23:26
Speaker 1: technique was recently used to solve the Golden State killer
23:29
Speaker 1: case in California. Now in twenty fourteen, police had already
23:33
Speaker 1: given genetic genealogy a shot in the case of Angi Dodge.
23:37
Speaker 1: Using the DNA profile from the crime scene and an
23:39
Speaker 1: ancestry dot com database, they obtained a partial DNA match
23:44
Speaker 1: to a man in New Orleans, a possible suspect, a
23:47
Speaker 1: man named Michael Ustri. They became more and more interested
23:52
Speaker 1: in Usri after it turned out that he was a
23:54
Speaker 1: filmmaker with a flair for the macabre. He had recently
23:58
Speaker 1: created a short film called murder Abelia about the market
24:02
Speaker 1: for collectibles related to real life killings.
24:04
Speaker 2: And when he told the officers that he had been
24:07
Speaker 2: to Idaho at some point around the time of this
24:10
Speaker 2: crime on a camping trip, their expectations soared even higher.
24:15
Speaker 1: Police interviewed Michael Usri and got his full DNA profile,
24:18
Speaker 1: but it didn't match the DNA left at the scene.
24:21
Speaker 1: Film noir or not, he wasn't guilty. As for everyone
24:25
Speaker 1: else in the Usri family, tree police found themselves out
24:28
Speaker 1: of leeds again. Every other male in the family was
24:31
Speaker 1: ruled out too young, too old, never been to Idaho Falls.
24:36
Speaker 1: But again, Carol Dodge didn't give up. In twenty eighteen,
24:39
Speaker 1: she found the genetic genealogist who had cracked open the
24:42
Speaker 1: Golden State killer case, doctor C. C. Moore. Carol pressured
24:46
Speaker 1: police to hire doctor Moore, and they did. Doctor Moore
24:50
Speaker 1: started looking through obituaries to fill in the blanks in
24:53
Speaker 1: the USRI family tree, and she.
24:54
Speaker 6: Was able to take samples that were found at the
24:57
Speaker 6: crime scene and compare them to Geni law logical DNA database.
25:01
Speaker 6: That led her to a family tree of individuals who
25:05
Speaker 6: could be related to the person who left the DNA
25:07
Speaker 6: at the crime scene. And only with the help of
25:10
Speaker 6: an obscure record that they found in a library, they
25:13
Speaker 6: were finally able to track down Brian Drips.
25:16
Speaker 1: Brian Dripps is a biological Uzri who had been adopted
25:19
Speaker 1: by his stepfather and grew up as part of another family.
25:23
Speaker 1: By the time his name came up in late twenty eighteen,
25:27
Speaker 1: Drips was fifty three years old, and it turned out
25:31
Speaker 1: he used to live in Idaho Falls, right across the
25:34
Speaker 1: street from Angie Dodge.
25:36
Speaker 2: Police had actually interviewed him during a canvas of the
25:40
Speaker 2: crime scene and the area around where the crime occurred.
25:45
Speaker 2: They interviewed the true killer within days of Angie Dodge's murder.
25:50
Speaker 1: Brian Dripps had left Idaho Falls shortly after the killing.
25:54
Speaker 1: He was now living in a different part of Idaho,
25:57
Speaker 1: and he wasn't in the national DNA database. He was
26:00
Speaker 1: the perfect suspect. Now all police needed was a complete
26:05
Speaker 1: DNA match. They started tailing Drips, and they found their
26:09
Speaker 1: opportunity when he threw a cigarette butt out his car window.
26:12
Speaker 1: Police recovered that cigarette butt, and there it was a
26:17
Speaker 1: DNA match to the evidence left in Angie's bedroom all
26:21
Speaker 1: those years ago. After more than two decades, Brian Drips
26:26
Speaker 1: was arrested for the rape and murder of Angie Dodge,
26:29
Speaker 1: and Chris Tap was finally exonerated in an Idaho courtroom
26:35
Speaker 1: on July seventeenth, twenty nineteen. Since then, Chris Tap and
26:40
Speaker 1: Carol Dodge have become close. They've even appeared on television
26:43
Speaker 1: together to tell their intertwined stories of injustice. For his part,
26:48
Speaker 1: Brian Drips is currently incarcerated in Idaho Falls, where he's
26:52
Speaker 1: awaiting trial on first degree murder and rape charges. He's
26:55
Speaker 1: entered a plea if not guilty, for justice can be
27:00
Speaker 1: a long, slow crawl. Carol and Chris know this better
27:04
Speaker 1: than anyone.
27:05
Speaker 6: Assuming Brian Drips is eventually convicted, she will have not
27:09
Speaker 6: only freedom innocent man, but driven the effort to catch
27:13
Speaker 6: the guilty one. She's been the driving force behind this
27:16
Speaker 6: whole thing, both the exoneration of Chris Tap and the
27:20
Speaker 6: apprehension of Brian drips.
27:22
Speaker 2: Slowly but surely, over many years, she was able to
27:27
Speaker 2: get the Idaho Falls Police out of the Chris tap box.
27:32
Speaker 2: She got them to see the truth.
27:38
Speaker 4: Keryl, Yeah, Hi, how are you today, Steve.
27:42
Speaker 7: I'm really sad. I was just sitting here thinking with
27:47
Speaker 7: the cost of justice, those all the things that I
27:50
Speaker 7: sacrificed because of people that could have done the right
27:55
Speaker 7: thing at the very beginning.
27:57
Speaker 4: It's so important that you say that. People really don't know.
28:01
Speaker 4: It's been a real price to your twenty three year.
28:04
Speaker 7: Search for the troops. And I never allowed any of
28:09
Speaker 7: the authorities to tell me. Now, for the time they
28:13
Speaker 7: told me that something couldn't be done, I would just say,
28:17
Speaker 7: we'll watch me.
28:19
Speaker 4: There things that your work has done which you probably
28:22
Speaker 4: can't even see or appreciate yet that I hope gives
28:27
Speaker 4: you some comfort.
28:28
Speaker 7: It does.
28:29
Speaker 3: I love you.
28:30
Speaker 7: I love you too, and thank you.
28:39
Speaker 3: Hello.
28:40
Speaker 7: Hey, Chris, it's Laura. How are you good, Laura?
28:43
Speaker 3: How are you?
28:44
Speaker 6: I'm good. I'm good.
28:46
Speaker 1: So tell me about what you've been doing with your
28:47
Speaker 1: time as a free man. I understand I've got a family.
28:50
Speaker 3: I do. I have an amazing family. Lucie I got
28:53
Speaker 3: out in March of twenty seventeen. I met my wife
28:55
Speaker 3: two months later in May, and well would romance and
28:58
Speaker 3: we were married in July. I have three beautiful step
29:01
Speaker 3: children or children on my own as I could love
29:03
Speaker 3: to call um. I have an almost twenty one year old,
29:05
Speaker 3: I got a sixteen year old, and I almost got
29:07
Speaker 3: a fifteen year old boy. Tell me a little bit about.
29:11
Speaker 7: What it's meant to you to have Carol Dodge sight
29:14
Speaker 7: for you.
29:15
Speaker 3: Oh Carol Dodge, I love her dearly more than most
29:19
Speaker 3: people will ever know. The actual true killer of her
29:22
Speaker 3: daughter would be caught, and I wouldn't have the exoneration
29:24
Speaker 3: that wasn't for Carroll Dodge.
29:31
Speaker 2: Chris, it was a great honor for me to play
29:33
Speaker 2: even a small role in your exoneration, and being in
29:37
Speaker 2: that courtroom when you were finally cleared was one of
29:41
Speaker 2: the highlights of my career. You've been given a gift,
29:45
Speaker 2: and I hope you take this gift, and I know
29:47
Speaker 2: you will, and that you live a life that is
29:51
Speaker 2: honorable and.
29:52
Speaker 1: Worthy to Chris Tap and Carol Dodge, two of our heroes.
29:58
Speaker 1: Thanks for letting us share your story. Wrongful conviction, false
30:07
Speaker 1: confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
30:10
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number One. Special thanks to our
30:14
Speaker 1: executive producer Jason Flamm and the team at Signal Company
30:18
Speaker 1: Number one Executive producer Kevin Wardis, Senior producer and Pope
30:22
Speaker 1: and additional production and editing by Connor Hall. Special thanks
30:26
Speaker 1: to Jogi Hammer for additional script editing and for wrangling
30:29
Speaker 1: and writing like a mad Woman. Special thanks to Mike
30:33
Speaker 1: Heavey for organizing and editing Chris Tabs interrogation videos. Our
30:37
Speaker 1: music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow me
30:41
Speaker 1: on Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nyrid and you can follow.
30:44
Speaker 2: Me on Twitter at s Drisen.
30:47
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit Wrongfulconviction podcast dot
30:51
Speaker 1: com and be sure to follow the show on Instagram
30:54
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
30:58
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction