Five shocking details about Angie Dodge's murder

The violent murder of 18-year-old Angie Dodge brought the quiet town of Idaho Falls to a standstill. Dodge was found partially clothed, brutally stabbed, and raped in her bedroom by two of her colleagues on June 13, 1996.

As the detectives from the Idaho Falls Police Department failed to locate a suspect or match the DNA sample of the semen retrieved from the crime scene, they narrowed down on a friend of Dodge, Christopher Tapp, and reportedly coerced him into a confession. The real murderer, Brian Leigh Dripps Sr., was apprehended 23 years later with the use of familial DNA searching, and Tapp's charges were exonerated in July 2019 with the help of the Idaho Innocence Project.

The Dateline NBC episode titled True Confession airs on February 23, 2024, at 9 pm EST and showcases the harrowing details of the long-unsolved murder of Angie Dodge. The synopsis of the episode reads:

"An Idaho man is sentenced to life after falsely confessing to his friend's murder; but after the true culprit is caught and the case seemingly closed, a chilling twist unfolds."

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Five details about Angie Dodge's murder explored

1) Angie Dodge had moved to an apartment in Idaho Falls three weeks before her murder

Angie Dodge moved out of her parents' house and into her new apartment in Idaho Falls in May 1996. The move took place after Angie's recent split with her boyfriend and a disagreement over a house rule with her mother, Carol Dodge. However, she had dropped by on June 12 to make amends, as Carol shared with ABC News,

“The night that she came over, I rocked her, and I said, ‘I’m so glad you’re not mad at me anymore,’ and she just looked up. She said, ‘Not even in a blue moon.’ The next day, that’s when they told me that Angie had been found dead.”

Angie was found with 14 stab wounds, throat slit wide open, and partially clothed in her apartment the next day, per CBS News. An autopsy revealed that she had been brutally r*ped before her death.

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2) The crime scene revealed semen left behind by the killer, which served as a strong piece of evidence

Dodge's colleagues swung by her north Idaho Falls apartment to check in on her when she failed to show up for work at the Beauty for All Seasons store, and that's when they discovered her body in her bedroom, per BBC News. The police at the scene saw no signs of forced entry but evidence of struggle.

The time of death was determined to be between 00:45 and 11:15 on June 13, 1996. The leading DNA expert, Dr Greg Hampikian, shared,

“It was a very good one. There was a neat semen sample taken directly from the victim's body. It was a really good sample. A pristine profile.”

The investigators from the Idaho Falls Police Department collected DNA samples from the semen left behind, Angie Dodge's clothing, and bedding linen.

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3) Christopher Tapp was wrongfully convicted for the murder and r*pe of Angie Dodge

Christopher Tapp, Angie's friend from a group of teenagers hanging out by the Snake River known as River Rats, was suspected of the crime as another common friend, Benjamin Hobbs, was arrested for r*ping a woman at gunpoint in Nevada.

As per BBC News, the police questioned Tapp for over 100 hours, interrogated him nine times, and made him take seven polygraph tests. He was reportedly coerced into a confession with the promise of full immunity and threats of being put into a gas chamber. His DNA match came back negative when it was taken to test after 10 years - in 2016.

Christopher Tapp was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for first-degree murder, r*pe, and use of a deadly weapon, per East Idaho News. He served 21 years before his charges were exonerated with the intervention of the Idaho Innocence Project and Carol Dodge. Tapp reached a settlement with the city of Idaho Falls for $11.4 million after he sued the city for a wrongful conviction in June 2022, per The New York Times.

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4) Angie's mother, Carol Dodge, pursued the police for 25 years to solve the case

The 25-year-long murder and r*pe case of Angie Dodge was solved owing to the relentless pursuit of Angie's mother, Carol Dodge. She was a visible presence in the courtroom during Christopher Tapp's conviction, per BBC News. Despite Tapp's arrest, Carol did not rest well as Tapp's DNA failed to match the sample from the crime scene.

Carol studied hours worth of Christopher Tapp's interrogation tapes and contacted his attorney, John Thomas, to help with his appeals. It was Carol who had reached out to the world-renowned genetic genealogist CeCe Moore in November 2018 for the genealogical analysis of the DNA sample of the killer, per ABC News.

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5) Brian Leigh Dripps Sr. pled guilty to the crime in February 2021

Following the wrongful accusation of Michael Usry Jr. for the murder of Angie Dodge, the investigators used a familial DNA search on GEDMatch with the help of CeCe Moore and Parabon NanoLabs to find Brian Leigh Dripps Sr.

Brian Leigh Dripps Sr. lived across the street from the Dodge household in Idaho Falls in 1996 and was found to have a perfect match to the killer's DNA sample with the use of a discarded cigarette butt. He was arrested in May 2019 and pled guilty in February 2021. He was sentenced to a 20-year to life prison sentence by District Judge Joel Tingey, per The Washington Times.