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Narrator
by mid January 1997, the Idaho Falls Police have interviewed Chris Tapp four times. As Chris sits for his fifth interview, officers bring up the DNA evidence found at the crime scene. It's something they've mentioned to Chris before. Chris asks, will my DNA be there?
Chris Tapp
I don't remember touching anything, but it might be.
Narrator
During their canvass of Angie's neighborhood and their interviews with people who knew her, police say they collected around a hundred DNA samples. The officers tell Chris their biggest fear is that the DNA samples will match him.
Chris Tapp
Our biggest concern right now is that DNA of mine. So we just have to, you know, we just have to think about that.
Narrator
Chris says he doesn't think the DNA will be his.
Chris Tapp
I'm not cold blooded. I'm not thick. I'm not sick minded.
Narrator
That afternoon, the officers get a call from the forensic lab. It's not news of a breakthrough. Officers learn that the DNA does not match Chris Tapp, which means the physical evidence that investigators are working with does not tie Ben Hobbs or Chris tapped to the crime scene. But the police don't stop focusing on Chris. Instead, they bring Chris in for another polygraph. They press him for more information. They ask him what he could still be hiding, who he could still be hiding.
Chris Tapp
Your ass is in deep trouble, okay?
Narrator
They ask, was there another person in Angie's apartment he can tell them about?
Chris Tapp
Are you protected? So I ain't protecting nobody no more.
Narrator
From ABC Audio and 20 20, I'm Maggie Ruley, and this is the Snare. Episode 3 no good explanation. When Chris sits down for his polygraph on January 18, it's the third time he's been hooked up to the machine. The third time his reactions have been charted and assessed for deceptiveness. The officer running the polygraph starts off by telling Chris that during his first polygraph he. He was so deceptive that he was going off the charts. But during his second, the officer says he was getting close to being completely truthful. Now the officer urges Chris to be more truthful. About 10 minutes in, after the same questions Chris had been asked during his Other polygraphs. Did he kill Angie? Was he in the apartment when she was killed? The officer asks, were you, Jeremy, and Ben there? Remember, no evidence ties Ben Hobbs to Angie's rape and murder. Even though his name will continue to come up in these police interviews, he'll never be charged in the case. So police start to turn their attention to another young man who spent the summer of 1996 hanging out at the Snake River. Jeremy Sargis, a friend of Ben and Chris. At first, when the officer asks Chris if Jeremy was there, Chris says no. But 20 minutes into the polygraph, the officer insists, tell me the other person who's there. And Chris replies, baby Jeremiah's. Maybe Jer was. This was another big shift. In Chris's version of the night Angie was killed. He was now saying that maybe there was another person there during the crime, and maybe that person was his friend Jeremy.
Chris Tapp
I can't help Jeremy at all. No. Okay. He's already. So it's you, Ben, James. Jer. Jer. Let's just put Jer there.
Narrator
Let's just put Jer there, Chris says. At first, Chris doesn't seem fully confident that Jeremy was there. He says he's only speculating. But as the officer asks him more and more, Chris provides more and more details on what he claims Jeremy did. By the end of the hour and a half long polygraph, Chris now claims Jeremy held Angie down while she was stabbed. The officer tells Chris, you've done great this morning. After the polygraph, the officers conduct another interview with Chris. At this point, he. He has spoken with them for nearly nine hours over the course of a week and a half. But this time, officers have that new allegation from Chris that according to him, there was a third man at the crime scene. And after officers brought up Jeremy's name, this time, Chris tells investigators Jeremy held Angie down by her arms and eventually raped her. Officers ask why it's taken Chris so long to tell them this.
Chris Tapp
Once Jer got on you know that you got on me. What? Hold this chair have just crunch you.
Narrator
Chris says he and Jeremy were good friends, that they spent a lot of time over the summer at the Snake river together, hanging out. The officer asks if Jeremy ever threatened Chris.
Chris Tapp
Jared never threatened me.
Narrator
Jeremy Sargis had been on the police's radar for a while. He was known as one of Ben Hobbs best friends. So when Ben was arrested in Nevada in an unrelated case, investigators wanted to know what Jeremy knew. And days before the authorities asked Chris if Jeremy had been there at the crime scene, Jeremy came into the police station for a polygraph exam and an interview. Just like the investigators did with Chris, they applied pressure to Jeremy. They told Jeremy that Chris was talking with them.
Chris Tapp
Chris has an attorney, and we're gonna work a deal out with him. Okay? What do you think accessory to murder is gonna get you? Excuse me. Yep. Not a damn.
Narrator
Not a damn thing Jeremy said. Jeremy's tone with the officers was very different from Chris taps. He sounded defiant and irritated. The officers told Jeremy that he failed the polygraph test. But Jeremy didn't take their word for it. He demanded to see the results. He was aggravated and at the end of his rope.
Chris Tapp
Show me. I want to see it. I want to know how the polygraph works before I'm going to believe that.
Narrator
Jeremy kept pushing back on the officers, insisting he knew nothing and that they had things all wrong. Jeremy said he still doesn't know where Angie even lived and that he had no reason to kill her. Near the end of his interview, things reached a boiling point for real.
Chris Tapp
Sue. You're not coming clean, my friend. That's for real. Okay. You think? I know. I know. Why do you think we have you back in here? Do you think we'd be wasting our time and wasting your time if we didn't think you're involved here? No, you're wasting your time. You're barking up the wrong tree. You're making out of yourself. You really are. Excuse me. I'm making a fool out of my. Yeah, cuz I didn't do. I'm making a fool out of myself. I think you. I think you better stand up and look in the flipping mirror.
Narrator
The officer slammed the door of the interrogation room shut. Unlike Chris Tapp, Jeremy did not end up sitting in the interrogation room for multiple days. And the officers did not keep returning to him seeking information. This was it. But days after this interview with Jeremy Sargis, the officers now have Chris Tapp in the interrogation room claiming that Jeremy was part of Angie's murder. Has Jeremy been the missing piece in this case the entire time? Is he the DNA match?
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Narrator
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Narrator
Book direct@storieshotels.com Investigators ultimately get more DNA results back. And they find out the DNA does not match Jeremy Sargis. He's not the third man they've been asking Chris about. Once again, they do not have physical evidence supporting the version of events Chris has laid out in the interrogation room. And once again, the officers return to Kristapp. They bring Chris in for his seventh day of questioning. They tell him he's starting to come clean, but still holding back. And evidence is showing it.
Chris Tapp
I don't know what the hell you guys want from me, but I'm trying to give it to you.
Narrator
The officers tell Chris that Jeremy probably was not there like Chris alleged, and that there was another person involved who Chris has not named yet. They also remind Chris of something he and his attorney were told before the interview. That Chris's deal has been dissolved by the prosecutor. But they say if Chris was involved in Angie's murder beyond what he's told them, a new deal could possibly be constructed. They ask him why he's having so much trouble giving up the unnamed person. Chris sounds exasperated as he replies.
Chris Tapp
I would if I could. I would. Jesus Christ, I would. But I know I can give you every goddamn name in the book.
Narrator
The officers start suggesting to Chris that maybe he held Angie down, maybe he even cut her.
Chris Tapp
I know I didn't cut her. Okay, Maybe I did threaten her. Oh, I'm sure you did. I mean, come on, man. I mean, you're the heat of the moment. She's putting up the fight. You get caught up in it, you know, you just. That's not my style. That's not me.
Narrator
The questioning goes on for more than two hours. By the end, Chris has shifted his story again. He goes from that's not me to something entirely different, something that will change the course of his life. He says he cut Angie on her chest. He has now seemingly confessed not just to knowing what happened to Angie, but to being A part of it. Chris sits for more interviews and polygraphs. The officers keep asking him for names for the potential DNA match, but no one pans out. Eventually, according to police reports, Chris tells his attorney that he does not want to talk anymore, that if he remembers something, he will contact the police. Chris was charged with first degree murder and rape. The accessory to a felony charge was dropped. Jeremy Sargis was charged too, with being an accessory to a felony. But Jeremy was not a DNA match and had an alibi for the night of Angie's murder. Eventually, the charge was dropped and he was cleared as a suspect. Ben Hobbs wasn't charged. Besides Cruise's accusations during police interviews, nothing connected Ben to the crime. He was also cleared, which means that of the three friends investigators had focused on, only Chris Tapp continued to talk to police. Only Chris would stand trial. Only Chris would face Angie's mom in the courtroom. In May 1998, nearly two years after Angie's murder, Kristaps trial began in the Bonneville County Courthouse. It's a beige brick building in Idaho Falls, not far from the banks of the Snake river, where Angie and the man charged with her murder once savored the freedom of youth and summer. Brian Clark, a reporter in eastern Idaho, says a high profile case like this was rare in Idaho Falls.
Brian Clark
It was an unusual trial for around here. It was highly publicized.
Narrator
It was also a death penalty case. Chris's life was at stake as he entered the courtroom. He wore a loose fitting navy blue suit to the trial and his dark hair was neatly combed back. Carol Dodge and Chris Tapp's mom, Vera Tapp, were both in the courtroom. The jury for Chris's trial was carefully selected. According to the Idaho Falls Post register, a pool of 100 people was whittled down to 12, nine women and three men. By the time the trial started, Chris had a new lawyer.
Chris Tapp
He.
Narrator
He had also recanted his confession and said that police fed him all the details of the crime and he had repeated them. But authorities maintained that the interrogation was proper and that Chris had in fact volunteered information about the crime that they claimed only a perpetrator could know. During the trial, some videos of Chris interviews with the police were played for the jury only about an hour total of the interrogation tapes.
Brian Clark
They were selected pieces the jury didn't watch. Hours of interrogations, they saw him confessing to doing it, to participating in the crime.
Narrator
Angie's friend Tim Quick went to one day of the trial. He said he stopped going because it was too hard to watch Carol Dodge sit through it.
Tim Quick
At trial, Chris Tapp was silent. Just seemed like no emotion. Carol had uncontrollable pain, sobbing and crying and just very difficult to be there knowing that you couldn't do anything to make it better for her.
Narrator
The trial lasted two weeks, and as the summer of 1998 was about to begin, attorneys delivered their closing arguments. The prosecutor reiterated that Chris knew far too much about the exact details of the crime scene to not have been involved. The defense attorney said he had no good explanation for for why Chris confessed, but asked the jury to imagine being subjected to that many hours of police interrogation. He also argued that if Chris had simply stayed silent, he would not be on trial. What would the jury think? Would they see a man who gave a false confession like the defense alleged, or a man responsible for Angie's death?
Carol Dodge
This is in God's hands. Now there will be justice.
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Chris Tapp
It's America's 250th birthday party. No one throws a party like Disney.
Carter Roy
I'm Carter Roy, the host of Murder True Crime Stories. If you listen to true crime because you want more than just what happened, this show is for you. Each episode takes a deep dive into history's most notorious murders, looking beyond the crime scene to focus on the people and communities impacted the most. Whether a case is solved or unsolved, the goal is to understand why these stories still matter. New episodes drop every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Follow Murder True Crime Stories on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen.
Narrator
Just two days after closing arguments, the jury returned a verdict in one of the biggest trials In Idaho Falls history, Kristapp was found guilty of murder and rape and of using a deadly weapon to commit both crimes. After the verdict, local TV station Kifi interviewed Chris attorney outside the courthouse. He said Chris maintained his composure inside but sobbed on his shoulder once they left.
Chris Tapp's Attorney
It is definitely the most difficult verdict I've ever had to be a part of. There's not much to say to a 20 year old kid who's being faced at this point with the possibility of the death penalty or life in prison.
Narrator
Carol Dodge was interviewed outside the courthouse too, and said she wanted to thank the jury.
Carol Dodge
You were Angie's voice and the verdict was God's will. And thank you everybody for standing by us and for all of your prayers and your comfort and your support and thank you.
Chris Tapp
Thank you. Okay.
Narrator
Jeremy Sargis, once implicated by Chris in Angie's murder during police interviews but ultimately cleared as a suspect, found it hard to believe his friend Chris was guilty.
Jeremy Sargis
My heart's telling me no way, no way. I know the guy. I've never seen him in a fist fight and never seen him yell at anybody and. And what in the world are they thinking this guy did? I felt a lot of emotions when Chris went, went away. Anger. I was hurt. I was worried. I was glad that he was gone. He was locked up, you know, I mean, you feel a lot of, feel a lot of emotions through something like that. A lot of emotions and you just can't unfeel. It was a difficult time of life.
Narrator
Jeremy felt that even though his accessory to a felony charge had been dropped, people in Idaho Falls were still suspicious of him.
Jeremy Sargis
One day we're just kids hanging out down on the river. The next day, my two best friends are in prison. And now I'm looking at being looked at like I am capable of hurting somebody to that level. I mean, it was brutal. A lot of people thought that I should have been in prison too.
Narrator
Jeremy said the scrutiny, the rumors, they all got to be too much. He moved out of Idaho Falls.
Jeremy Sargis
I'm angry about being chased out of my hometown, missing my opportunity to grow and learn how to operate my family business with my little brother and cousins. And I'm really sad that I missed out on that. I'm really sad that I missed out on time with my mom. Sad that I had to give up friendships for my DOA Falls. That was my home. I was born there. I was supposed to stay there. I was supposed to be a part of that society. But instead, I had to find another place to be.
Narrator
In December 1998, Kristapp returned to the courthouse in Idaho Falls, facing either the death penalty or decades in Idaho state prison. Tim Quick says he and his friends wanted Chris to get the death penalty.
Tim Quick
We felt that he should be taken care of like he did to our friend.
Narrator
The judge said he was considering a lot of mitigating circumstances in his sentencing, that Chris was young, not even 20 years old yet when Angie was killed, that he was under the influence of drugs during the crime, that he has attention deficit disorder, and that he has no history of violence or prior felony convictions. He also said Chris would not have been in the courtroom if he had not been forthcoming with the police and that the prosecutor had not argued that Chris was the one who actually cut Angie's throat.
Chris Tapp
Christopher Tapp did not personally inflict a mortal wound on Angie Dodge.
Narrator
Given all those factors, the judge said he did not think the death penalty was just. He sentenced Chris to 30 years to life in prison. Chris's attorney said in an interview that he believed there were plans to appeal the conviction, but that Chris was relieved he did not receive the death penalty. But life in prison didn't feel like enough for Carol Dodge. She thought Chris should be put to death for what he'd done to her daughter.
Carol Dodge
Doesn't anybody understand what's going on in this town? Won't anybody wake up? This town needs to wake up. Take your blinders off for health sakes.
Narrator
Chris's trial was over, but the police's investigation was not. After all, the whole theory of the case, the theory that had convicted Chris, was based on another person being involved in Angie's murder and someone besides Chris inflicting the mortal wound. There was still that unidentified man whose DNA was found at the crime scene.
Brian Clark
They hadn't caught everybody. There was still a murderer out there.
Narrator
And Brian Clark says there was one person in particular who applied pressure on the Idaho Falls police to keep investigating.
Brian Clark
Carol Dodge is a force of nature. She worked on this in a way that families don't do. She continued to just try and find a break in the case. Carol Dodge was, in fact, such a presence at ifpd, regularly coming over, walking right into the chief's office, telling him what she thought and requesting that he do more to find her daughter's killer that they eventually put in a set of doors that are now called the Carroll doors to keep her from doing that.
Narrator
Carol says when Angie was murdered, she felt like her body shut down. She says she couldn't walk or talk. She would forget how to get home. But despite her grief, she always checked in with police, she wanted constant updates on her daughter's case.
Carol Dodge
I'd walk in there and I say, what's happening today? Well, just nothing. I go, will you just sit there? Because I'm going out to the streets tonight.
Narrator
Carol didn't wait for police to turn up leads. She says she started conducting her own investigation, interviewing people, staking out rough neighborhoods. She says there were nights she'd be out until 4, 5 o' clock in the morning chasing down leads, and she'd bring whatever she found to the police, desperately hoping that it would lead to a break in the case. But none of her efforts brought her any closer to identifying the killer.
Carol Dodge
I look at Angie's case and there's so many pieces I've been trying to put this puzzle together and the center's missing.
Narrator
That sense of not being able to put the puzzle together, it went on for years and years. But in 2008, a full decade after Chris was convicted of Angie's murder, Carol Dodge made a decision that would change her life and Chris's. Carol had been revisiting every aspect of the police's investigation.
Carol Dodge
I kept going back and forth and I kept reading all of the documents and reading the different reports that I had accumulated.
Narrator
As part of that, Carol got a hold of recordings of Kris Tapp's many interrogations and polygraph tests. It was nearly 60 hours of footage. She thought maybe there was something in those tapes that that could lead her to some answers. So she decided to watch all of the footage.
Chris Tapp
You went from no involvement to where you're starting to come clean on some stuff, but you're still holding back.
Narrator
She says it was her first time sitting down to watch the videotapes. Until that moment, she'd only seen snippets of Chris's interrogation. Just the parts that were played during his trial.
Chris Tapp
I mean, okay, I willing to work with you guys. I don't know what the hell you guys want for me, but I'm trying to give it to you. I mean, that's all I can do.
Narrator
Then as Carol watched those hours and hours of footage, she says she realized something. Everything she thought she knew about Kristaps role in her daughter's murder might be wrong. The Snare is a production of ABC Audio in 2020 hosted by me, Maggie Rouley. Produced by Camille Peterson and Sabrina Fang with help from Annalise Linder and Emily Shutz. Edited by Tracy Samuelson. Our supervising producer is Susie Lu. Music by Evan Viola Mixing by Bob Mallory. Special thanks to Katie Dendas, Janice Johnston, Nancy Rosenbaum, Sasha Aslanian, Suzanne DiCunto, and Michelle Margulis. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Amy McNiff is our executive producer.
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Brian Clark
I'm not giving up.
Chris Tapp
I am selling the building.
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Brian Clark
The restaurant is flooded.
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Everything's either going to be okay.
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No, stop.
Carol Dodge
Or not.
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We are outgunned and we are outmanned, but we have each other.
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Podcast: The Snare (ABC News / 20/20)
Host: Maggie Rulli
Date: June 30, 2026
Episode 3, “No Good Explanation,” delves into the increasingly tangled investigation into the 1996 murder of Angie Dodge in Idaho Falls. The focus is on the shifting police interrogations of Chris Tapp, the saga of false confessions, the continued hunt for a DNA match, and the extraordinary persistence of Angie’s mother, Carol Dodge, who refuses to let the case go cold. This chapter carefully unpacks how the criminal justice system latched onto a suspect while compelling evidence suggested the real killer remained free.
Presented in a calm, investigative style with underlying emotion—particularly from family and friends. Host Maggie Rulli balances factual reporting with empathy for all involved, allowing survivors’ voices and frustrations to come through.
This episode places listeners deep within the flawed investigation and trial that sent Chris Tapp to prison for a crime DNA evidence suggested he didn’t commit. The episode highlights the dangers of tunnel vision in policing, the tragedy of coerced confessions, and the power of personal advocacy. Most memorably, it spotlights Carol Dodge's tireless campaign—whose reluctant doubt would eventually change the course of the case. The stage is set for revelations that will shake everything the town thought it knew about Angie Dodge’s murder.