An innocent Idaho man who spent 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit was mysteriously killed one month after he appeared on Dateline NBC to speak out about his wrongful conviction.
Christopher Tapp was just 21 when he was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted in the 1996 rape and murder of his friend, Angie Dodge, then 18. He was exonerated in 2017 after the Idaho Innocence Project in intervened.
The real killer, Brian Dripps, Sr., 55 confessed to the murder and pled guilty to the crime in 2021 and was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years and up to life in prison.
But after an exclusive September 2023 interview with Dateline, Tapp, then 47, turned up dead in a hotel room in Las Vegas. He died of blunt force trauma and in January, his death was ruled a homicide.
In Dateline NBC episode ‘True Confession,’ due to be aired Friday, Tapp tells host Keith Morrison: ‘I am just trying to be the best person I can be – blend the two people together. The guy that was in the prison and the guy before prison.’
‘We all make mistakes good or bad. We may do things right or wrong, but I am just trying to be the best person I can.’
Morrison asked Tapp, though he has moved on, ‘if he was still a little annoyed inside.’
‘Of course I will be. These people robbed my life for 20 years,’ he said during the sit down. ‘I will always be mad. I will always have that little bit of tension and resentment because of what these people did to me.’
Christopher Tapp, 47, was just 21 when he was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted in the 1996 rape and murder of his friend, Angie Dodd, then 18, but was freed in 2017 after the Idaho Innocence Project proved his innocence
The real murderer, Brian Dripps, Sr. in Dodd’s murder confessed to the killing and pled guilty to the crime in 2021. He is pictured at the Bonneville County Courthouse on February 9, 2021
Angie Dodge, was 18, when she was raped and stabbed to death in her apartment in Idaho Falls in June 13, 1996
Tapp told Morrison: ‘I wish I can say I have moved on and I have moved on because again look at what all these things I have been able to accomplish since the exonerateration with the compensaton bill here in Idaho and Oregon.
‘I have helped across the country passingg bills to help the wrongly convicted for the next individual.’
NBC Dateline has been following the case for decades, providing viewers with in-depth coverage.
Its latest two-hour broadcast will include new interviews with investigators, other suspects, family members of Dodge, and more key figures including the lead investigator Bill Squires, who is now retired, and Jeremy Sargis, a friend whom Tapp falsely accused of involvement.
Additional interviews include, Steven Drizin a false confession expert who worked to free Chris, and CeCe Moore, an investigative genetic genealogist who pointed police toward the real killer.
On Thursday, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told DailyMail.com the homicide investigation is ongoing, with no new developments at this time.
Angie Dodge was raped and stabbed to death in an apartment she had recently moved into in June 1996.
Dodge’s body was found by co-workers who went to check on her. Investigators were able to obtain DNA samples from hair, skin cells and body fluids at the scene.
Tapp was interrogated nine times and subjected to seven polygraph tests, which he was told he failed and as a result may face the death penalty.
He was convicted after a jury heard what experts would later say were false confessions under extreme duress, and was found guilty even though his DNA did not match evidence found at the crime scene.
On March 22, 2017, Tapp was released, after serving 20 years of a 30 year sentence, after a plea deal with prosecutors.
The judge vacated his rape conviction and re-sentencing him to time served for the 1996 murder of Dodge.
Christopher Tapp, pictured right with his public defender John Thomas during Tapp’s post conviction relief hearing at the Bonneville Courthouse in Idaho Falls on March 22, 2017
Christopher Tapp, right, and Jeremy Sargis, who was also originally linked to the crime but whose charges were dropped, embrace during Tapp’s post conviction relief hearing at the Bonneville Courthouse in Idaho Falls, Idaho
Tapp pictured hugging his attorney in the court room after he was exonerated
Christopher Tapp celebrates after his post conviction relief hearing at the Bonneville Courthouse in Idaho Falls, Idaho, Wednesday, March 22, 2017. Tapp, who experts say was coerced into a false murder confession, is now free after spending half of his life behind bars
His conviction was overturned using a pioneering DNA technology, a technique called ‘genetic genealogy.’
The technique requires making DNA matches with distant relatives, which in Tapp’s case, led police to Dripps, a neighbor of Dodge who lived across the street.
The database is taken from websites that collect DNA samples of users and allow them to find relatives online by posting their results and generating a list
Police used the database of genetic profiles collected from websites such as 23 and Me and Ancestry, where people send samples of DNA to discover their roots
The technique has been used to implicate suspects in previous crimes, but this is the first time it has been used to exonerate someone who had already been jailed.
Christopher Tapp is pictured after his release as a media surround him
Tapp was sentenced in 1998, based only a confession which he later retracted. The court agreed to release him from prison in 2017, but the charges were not dropped.
On July 17, 2019, his murder conviction was vacated.
Judge Alan Stephens said, ‘as far as the court is concerned, you are cleared of the charges you have been living under for the past 20-plus years,’ as per the Innocence Project.
Bonneville County District Attorney Danny Clark, who initially said Tapp was complicit in Dodge’s death, joined in the new motion to vacate the murder conviction.
After he was cleared Tapp said, ‘I’m thankful that I’ve been given this second chance at life. ‘I’ve wasted 20 years of my life for something I never did, but I also grew up over those 20 years.’
He added: ‘It’s a new life, a new beginning, a new world for me, and I’m just gonna enjoy every day.’
In December 2019, he filed a state court lawsuit seeking damages from the city of Idaho Falls.