The history of the Christopher Tapp case
June 13, 1996, Angie Dodge is discovered dead in her I-street apartment. Someone had raped and killed her. Within months, police were sure they had their man: Benjamin Hobbs. They interviewed him and one of his friends, Christopher Tapp.
“Chris Tapp thought he was doing the right thing by helping the police,” said attorney John Thomas. Instead, Tapp’s public defender said his client ultimately confessed to taking part in the murder..
“The police kind of railroaded him,” said Thomas.
Thomas said Tapp was interrogated nine different times for a total of about 20 hours. The group “Judges for Justice” compiled a report saying the interrogations were filled with threats and promises of immunity.
“I’m not going to comment on the facts of the report,” said former Bonneville County prosecuting attorney Bruce Pickett. He wouldn’t speak about the specifics, but said he’s in the process of reviewing that report.
“Any time that someone who has been convicted may have been wrongfully convicted, we have the obligation to look into that,” said Pickett.
Meanwhile, Thomas said it’s time to correct the wrongs.
“We need to find the killer, obviously. There needs to be justice for Angie Dodge,” said Thomas.
In December 1998, Tapp was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
Later, the first post conviction relief petition was filed in October 2002. The case was dismissed. The second post conviction relief was filed in March 2009. It was later dismissed in May 2013. A third relief petition was filed in September 2012. It too was dismissed. A fourth post conviction relief petition was filed in May 2015. In this one, the petition involves two issues. First, if prosecutors should have turned over videos of the interrogation and polygraphs. Second, if new evidence can be presented to show Tapp was coerced into confessing.
This is where the story begins to get interesting. What has been traditional court procedures with what most people believe is a convicted killer going through all the legal motions, now starts to raise questions about whether Tapp was coerced to confess. Public defender Thomas is convinced many rules were broken in the interrogation process. He fights endlessly for Tapp to get another trial.
Then “Judges for Justice” comes on board. The retired judges study wrongful conviction cases like what they believed Tapp’s was. Judge Mike Heavy spent two years listening to 25 hours of interrogation video. He then watched the polygraph video. He said it was in that video he could see, “coercion, manipulation, and eventual brainwashing of an impressionable 20-year-old high school dropout.”
July 2016, Bonneville County prosecutor Danny Clark hired a private firm to investigate the Tapp case.
“Not to support the conviction of Mr. Tapp or to contradict it, but to simply look at the evidence and analyze it fairly and objectively.” said Clark.
December 2016, the Bonneville County prosecutor released his views on the independent report, finding no evidence of reversing Tapp’s conviction.
But something happened between December 2016 and March 2017. DNA results from the rape and murder scene in no way implicated Christohper Tapp, not the semen sample, not the hairs left behind, not the ‘touch’ DNA’ tests performed on key pieces of evidence.
Tapp walks out of jail Wed., March 22 at 11 a.m. a free man. Rape charges are completely dropped, but Tapp agrees to the second-degree murder conviction. His lawyers try to talk him out of it so his record is completely clean, but Tapp wants out now.
One big question remains. The victim’s mother, Carol Dodge sums it up.
“There is not one speck of evidence on Angie that belongs to Chris Tapp. It belongs to one individual. And that individual has never been found,” said Dodge.
