48 Hours - The Twisted Case of Angie Dodge

Episode Date: November 10, 2019

A brutal murder and police have DNA evidence — could a discarded cigarette lead investigators to a possible killer and close a case two decades later? CBS News correspondent Anne-Marie Green reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. My name is Carol Dodge, and I am the mother of Angie Dodge, who was brutally murdered in June of 1996. And for 23 years, I've traveled every road there is, turned every stone there is, to find justice for my daughter.

As the officers arrived at the crime scene and found Angie Dodge laying on the ground, it was obvious that there was a very brutal murder that had happened. A lot of blood. During the investigation, we came across a significant amount of DNA that we believe is from the killer. Would you say that this crime scene provided really good evidence? Excellent evidence. good evidence. Excellent evidence. For nearly two decades police could not find a match to the killer's DNA so in 2014 they went way outside the box and searched a public DNA database owned by It led us to this Michael Ussry Jr.

who just happened to be a filmmaker. Films of homicide, kind of a murder mystery filmmaker. Then he cuts off her head. My name is Michael Ussry. I'm a filmmaker and was a suspect in the Angie Dodge case. Murderabilia. It was then I knew it was a girl. And she was young.

Got me the reputation of being a person who is really into murder and things like that. I shoved her body over in the shower. I just kept stabbing her. It was pretty creepy. We had Louisiana State Police call him. He had agreed to come down to the state offices there in New Orleans. The majority of the time that I was in the interrogation room, I just didn't know what they were talking about. The majority of the time that I was in the interrogation room,

I just didn't know what they were talking about. They finally had to look at me and go, no, we think that you, Michael Lushry, we think that you're involved in this murder case. My whole purpose is to find who killed Angie Dodge. The ability to kill is obviously somewhere in all of us because it happens every day. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror.

But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long

career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Grief has no time limit. I just can't, I can't let go.

I can't let go of her. Carol Dodge lost her daughter Angie when she was just a teenager. She was just discovering who she truly was and wanting independence. She says, just let me grow up. Let me make my own mistakes. You know, you don't need to watch me. You know, you don't need to be my shadow. It was the summer of 1996 in Idaho Falls, Idaho,

a mostly Mormon community where neighbors knew each other by name, and doors were rarely locked, says former chief of police Mark McBride. But it was really a very quiet, peaceful town overall. Just three weeks before her death, 18-year-old Angie got her own apartment in this house. I saw her the night that she was killed. She said it was so hard growing up, and she laid her head on my shoulder and we just kind of rocked back and forth and I'm so grateful for that moment. Extremely grateful that my last words were that I love her. The next morning, Angie didn't show up for work at a local beauty supply store. We got a phone call at our 911 center about 11 o'clock in the morning.

And one of her friends at work came to check on her. And the door was unlocked. She went in and she found a body laying there on the floor in a very bloody crime scene. There were no signs of forced entry, but there were signs of a struggle. You think she fought for her life? Yes, I do. Angie was stabbed and cut 14 times and left half naked. The killer ejaculated on her, leaving behind what DNA expert Greg Hampikian calls a pristine profile.

It's a single profile, complete identification, one man to the exclusion of everyone on the planet. Police began collecting the DNA of dozens of local men and spent months interviewing everyone Angie knew, including this young man, Christopher Tapp. Although his DNA didn't match and Tapp denied any involvement, after more than 28 hours of interrogation over 23 days, Tapp confessed to participating in Angie's murder. You were there, correct? Right. Did you know Christopher Tapp? No, had no clue.

Tapp told police that the night of Angie's death, he and two friends stopped by her apartment. During an argument, Tapp claimed one of his friends started stabbing Angie while he held her down. Angie while he held her down. You hold her down, okay, while she's being cut. You hold her down while she's being cut. But when Tapp went before a judge, he pled not guilty of raping and murdering Angie Dodge. I said, you beast, you horrible beast. How could he do this to my daughter? Defense argued Tapp's DNA didn't match the killer's, but on May 28, 1998, it took a jury approximately 13 hours to reach a verdict.

Guilty. Nearly two years after Angie Dodge was murdered, Chris Tapp faced his punishment, with Carol Dodge glaring at him. You are guilty of the crimes of murder in the first degree and rape. His sentence, 30 years to life. But the murder of Angie Dodge was still an open case. Chris Tapp did not match the DNA, and he wouldn't tell police who did. I just couldn't understand why he would go to prison and take a life sentence and not give the other person up. Tapp did give authorities several names, including someone named Mike.

How sure are you that this person is? I'm positive. But police could never make a DNA match, so the case went cold, but not for Carol Dodge. I never stop looking for the actual person who matches the DNA. By 2009, the killer's DNA had been entered into the National Criminal Database, known as CODIS. But there was still no match.

So Carol called well-known DNA expert Greg Hampikian. I had this message, they don't know who killed my daughter. By then, there had been many advances in DNA technology. And so, with Hampikian's help, Carol Dodge pushed authorities to use a new controversial search process called familial DNA. It looks for anyone who may be related to Angie's killer. Which means going into that database in Idaho of the convicted offenders and looking for a family member that might match this DNA partially.

Idaho doesn't allow familial searches in their criminal database, so Hampikian made an even more controversial suggestion, a familial search through public databases. I'm the one that went to the Idaho Falls Police Department and the prosecution saying, we need to do this. Imagine you're one of millions of Americans to open up a kit like this, spit into a test tube like this, and then send your DNA off to a commercial database.

Well, now that database owns your DNA profile. And you may not realize it, but police may be able to access it. We're at our sense of solving a crime, and we're going to use any technique we can that we can legally use. In the summer of 2014, detectives searched a public DNA database owned by Ancestry.com. They got a hit. I was told they got 34 out of 35 markers, I believe. Is that good?

Yeah. That's a good investigative lead. It was a close enough match to make Detective Patrick McKenna think they had found a relative of Angie's killer. So police got a warrant for Ancestry.com to reveal his identity. It was a man named Michael Usry Sr. We know it's not that individual, or we would have had 35 out of 35 on that. So that's when we started doing research into the family. That led investigators to suspect Usry's son,

Michael Usry Jr. Detective McKenna wondered if this could be the Mike that Chris Tapp once named. And then we started researching him, and the films that he was making, it was a little eerie to try to think that that could possibly be a solid suspect in the case. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand,

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When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk takers who brought them to life.

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I have to ask you this question. Yes. Do you have a particular interest in murder? I don't have a particular interest in murder. It sure seems like it based on your film. I know, it does. But no, I really have quite an aversion to it. But authorities investigating the brutal murder of Angie Dodge weren't so sure. Precisely at two o'clock, three gentlemen came to my door. In December of 2014, more than 18 years

after Angie's murder, Michael Usry Jr. was living in New Orleans when two detectives from Idaho Falls and a Louisiana state police officer brought Usry to a state police office near the New Orleans Superdome and started grilling him. They said, so what about your travels to Idaho? Have you ever been to Idaho? And I had, in fact. I actually went up there with some friends for just one night. He was 19 years old back then, and he and his friends drove to Rexburg, Idaho, passing right through Idaho Falls. Well, they were really interested in that. A little surprised that we were able to actually place him in Idaho Falls. It was a big red flag for Detective Patrick McKenna. It's kind of weird, but I just really didn't get it.

Then one of the officers pulled out a warrant and swabbed his cheek for DNA. At that point, I went, hey, what's going on here, you guys? Should I get a lawyer? Once they had his DNA, they drove Michael Usry home without any explanation. I just basically stood on my sidewalk in a daze. It was a call to a close friend that finally shed some light. And he said, well, what's the case?

What is this? And I go, well, they wouldn't tell me anything except that it was a high-profile murder case in Idaho Falls. So he gets on the computer, and within 20 seconds, he's like, oh, yeah, this is the case right here. It's some girl named Angie Dodge. The filmmaker whose movie featured a convict

describing how he stabbed a woman to death Watched her insides spill out all over the floor. was now suspected of doing just that to Angie Dodge. I mean, it was very much a case of an overkill. They stabbed her and cut her, and it was just a butchery. People were like, wow, what does this imply, you know, for your career, for your life, for your family, for your family's name? Osree remembers being terrified, spending days holed up at home,

worried what police would do next. Pretty sure that they were tapping my phone calls, possibly staking me out, certainly checking my computer searches. But Usry knew he hadn't killed anyone, and he wanted answers. A local newspaper reporter showed him a copy of the warrant investigators used to obtain his DNA. And right there, the answer to the question, why him, dated back about 17 years. And I went, wow, this is because of my dad.

The filmmaker's father, Michael S. Reese Sr., participated in a genealogy project at his local church. A sample of his DNA went to that public database, which was later purchased by Ancestry.com, and that's where police came across it. There are 34 out of 35 LLs that match. It seems shocking to me. 34 out of 35 DNA markers sounds like a stunningly close match to Angie Dodge's killer. But the reasons police honed in on him instead of any of his other relatives are detailed in the warrant. I told you what, Mike is his first name, okay? Remember, Chris Tapp told police a guy named Mike was involved in the murder.

Police took to Facebook and found his profile. Bingo. Facebook showed Usry had friends living in the Idaho Falls area. And then there's Usry's films. And then bludgeons her to death with this very hammer. The more Usry read, the more furious he grew that anyone would think he was a killer. But even more troubling was the idea that Angie Dodge's killer might be someone in his family. Just knowing that somebody in my family would possibly do something like that

is disturbing, I mean, to say the least, you know. Michael Usry worried every day. He knew that Idaho Falls police suspected him of murdering Angie Dodge, and the uncertainty of what would happen next kept him up at night. Until January 13, 2015, more than a month later. They sent me an email, and it says, Michael Esher Jr., we just wanted to let you know that your DNA did not match our crime scene DNA, something you already knew. In an email from police, Michael Usher was officially cleared of the murder of Angie Dodge, but he was still thoroughly traumatized. You were angry at Ancestry? I was angry at everybody. The police, scientists, you know, these database companies. You know, how could they misfire so bad?

48 Hours asked Ancestry.com about Usry's experience. In a statement, they said they will not share any information with law enforcement unless compelled to by a court order or search warrant. unless compelled to by a court order or search warrant. Usri's case, they say, was unique, and the only time they have received a formal legal request for DNA-related information. After what happened to Usri, Ancestry.com told us they took action. The public database used by authorities was made private and can no longer be accessed by the public or police.

You can't control fate and what happens to you. So I just figured that this was, there was a reason for this happening. Michael Usry decided he wanted to try and prevent it from happening to anyone else by making a documentary about his experience. He was shocked when Angie Dodge's mother was willing to talk. What he didn't realize is that Carol Dodge had an agenda of her own. She's fairly certain that a killer is in my bloodline. I remember Mike and I sitting down, and I said, Okay, Mike, here's a piece of paper, and I want you to write down

from your great-grandfather to your grandfather to your dad, and he did me a genealogy sheet. My grandfather, he had six other brothers. Carol just wonders, hey, maybe it's somebody you don't even know. Maybe it's an illegitimate son of one of your pappy's brothers. of one of your pappy's brothers. Despite all that, Carol Dodge and Michael Usry have forged a rather odd, close bond. You're a really special person. You are too, Carol. And after hearing Carol and Angie's story,

the focus of Usry's documentary changed dramatically to Carol Dodge's search for her daughter's killer. He immersed himself in the case, starting with the man who had confessed, Chris Tapp. How many times did you stab her before you let go? That first time. Usry quickly learned that Chris Tapp was now claiming his confession was forced. And the Idaho Innocence Project, headed by that DNA expert Greg Hampikian,

was now working to set TAP free. Based on the DNA, is there any way that Chris could have been in that room? No, not based on the DNA. The more Carol Dodge learned about DNA, the more she questioned Chris's confession that he held Angie down while she was being stabbed. It wasn't until I started studying science that I said it's impossible.

How could Chris admit in doing what he said he did and there be no physical evidence? But it wasn't just the science that bothered Carol Dodge. She believed Chris Tapp's confession was coerced by the detectives who interrogated him. Come on, man. I mean, you're the heat of the moment. She's putting up the fight. Do you know? You're caught. You're right there in the middle. I watch it, and it's so frustrating.

This was Chris Tapp when we first met. At 40 years old, he'd been inmate number 56265 for 20 years. You look at that 20-year-old kid, you know, and you realize, God, I was just an idiot. Think hard about it. I know it's there. Chris Tapp says his confession was a lie, a story fed to him by police and then forced back out of him on tape. You can see him specifically pointing out facts to me or giving little innuendos. This would be the stairs going up. So you went up these stairs. Or hints of how the murder went down. Well, it's a porch that goes outside.

It all started because Chris Tapp's friend, a man named Ben, who also knew Angie, was arrested in Eli, Nevada for assaulting a woman at knife point. To investigators, the crime seemed similar to the attack on Angie. So while Ben was in custody in Nevada, investigators brought Chris in for questioning. Emphatically, I said, I had nothing to do with it. I don't know what you're talking about. But instead of leaving it at that, Tapp, then just 20 years old, cooperated. I felt like, trust him, they're not going to do anything wrong. He doesn't know they can lie to him.

Most innocent people have no idea that the interrogators can lie to you. First, Tap was told there was irrefutable evidence that his friend Ben killed Angie and that Tap was there when it happened. I'm pretty sure we know what happened and who did what, how, when, where, and why. Tapp kept denying all knowledge of the crime. Did you hear a scream or anything like that? I wasn't there.

But detectives persisted, and even though he had a lawyer, Tapp kept talking. And so when they offered you a polygraph, seemed like a good idea? Yeah, seemed like a good idea? Yeah, seemed like a great idea. I had nothing to hide, no reason not to do it. But Tapp was told he was being deceptive, and detectives promised him full immunity, no jail time,

in exchange for the truth, as long as he hadn't participated in the actual murder. That's when Tapp says he started telling police what he thought they wanted to hear. Now, are you sure Ben's there? Yes. You're positive? Yeah. Yes.

Okay. Tapp told detectives he was there when Ben killed Auntie Dodge. He told him, no, don't do it, don't do it. Yeah. Okay, so did he match the killer's DNA. A desperate Chris Tapp started changing his story, blaming several other friends for the murder. I continue to lie. I continue to give them story after story,

and they should have just stopped, but they didn't. But Chris, why didn't you stop? I didn't think I could. When none of the men he named matched the DNA, Tapp says police still refused to let up. After 23 days and seven interrogations, Chris Tapp confessed to participating in Angie's murder and authorities voided his immunity agreement.

You hold her down, okay, while she's being cut. You hold her down while she's being cut. That's what was the end of it all. That's what brought me to prison. Authorities have repeatedly dismissed Tapp's claims of a forced confession until about three years ago when an astonishing discovery would change the game. discovery would change the game. Never before seen videotapes of seven polygraph exams administered to Chris Tapp. Tapes that convinced even Carol Dodge that Chris Tapp is innocent. Chris Tapp basically just got railroaded. Carol Dodge took on a new mission to free the man convicted of her daughter's murder

and find the killer who left his DNA, even if it turned out to be a member faith, got to have a little hope. I haven't accepted this as my end. You always got to have a little faith, got to have a little hope. I haven't accepted this as my end. I can't imagine spending one day in prison, let alone 20-plus years. Mike Heavey is a retired Superior Court judge who believes so strongly that Chris Tapp is innocent, he spent the last four years trying to prove it.

When you look at the interrogation videos, he knows nothing. So Chris Tapp, he struggles. Let it out. For details. Let it out. You're there. Why? Because he wasn't there. Heavey runs a wrongful conviction project called Judges for Justice and took on Tapp's case after watching the interrogation tapes. I wasn't there. I wasn't even down the f***ing stairs. I wasn't nowhere around. Judge Heavey became convinced that Chris Tapp had been coerced into changing his story an astounding six times and knew that something was missing. I was concerned. He went from one day saying, I wasn't there. And the next day, you're standing above her

like this, like her head's right here. I'm at the crime scene and I stabbed her. I couldn't see how he made that jump. So I went back to look at the polygraph and my jaw just dropped. In between Chris's nine interrogations, detectives administered seven polygraph exams. All of them were recorded, but no one had ever bothered to look at the tapes because polygraphs are inadmissible in court, and the sound is barely audible. Polygraphs are typically used to assess the credibility of the witness when they're done honestly.

And how was the polygraph used in this case? This case was used to trick Chris Tapp into giving false testimony. Our polygraph expert says it was used like a psychological rubber hose to get him to implicate himself in the murder of Angie Dodge. Judge Heavey says that detectives in the case broke the rules in the polygraph room and thought no one would ever notice. The United States Supreme Court has held

that it's improper to threaten. You can't threaten because it leads to false confessions. They threaten him with the gas chamber, being an accessory to murder, and being a conspirator to murder. You're an accessory to murder. That's being charged with just life-threatening things. They get life-threatening gas chambers. They figured no one's going to look at the polygraphs, so it'll be hidden. No one will ever see it.

Heavey says Chris Tapp was brainwashed. I'm scared. I'm scared. The reason why is because you subconsciously... Chris Tapp eventually comes to believe that the polygraph is an all-knowing scientific instrument that can read his subconscious and is telling the machine that he was at the crime. Teacher, I wouldn't say this, but I need you to come with me.

You're trapped. Chris finally says yes. I stabbed her because Ben threatened me. And then Chris said, did I do it? The police officer walks over and says, give me your hand. Like he passed the polygraph. And that gets Chris Tapp 30 years to life, charged with the death penalty. Ugly stuff. Do you remember that moment? Yeah. Scared. I'm scared. That's pretty much the day my life ended.

But Tapp never told anyone about what happened during those polygraph exams. I didn't know what they did in the polygraph tapes was wrong. I didn't know. If I would have known these things 20 years, 15, 10 years ago, then maybe we wouldn't be here today. Idaho Falls police deny any wrongdoing in their interrogations or polygraph exams. Do you think the polygraph was used as a coercive tool?

I don't know that was the intent. I think the intent is find out the truth. Over the years, the courts have upheld Tapp's confession as valid and admissible and not the product of coercive police conduct. I don't think they were trying to cause harm. It wasn't any malicious intent, I don't think. It's hard for me to wrap my head around what the police are thinking. John Thomas is Chris Tapp's appellate attorney.

It's okay. You made a mistake. Just say, hey, I made a mistake. We got the wrong guy. Let's all rally around and let's get the right guy. Mike Heavey was hoping that the newly discovered polygraph tapes would be enough for a judge to grant Chris Tapp a new trial. Those polygraph videos are now new evidence. They're the wedge to get Chris in front of a judge to see the coercion that went on. I hope he walks out a free man. It's not often you hear the mother of a victim say that about the only man serving time for her daughter's murder. True. It was March 2017, and Chris Tapp was just two weeks away from two hearings that his lawyer, John Thomas, hoped would set him free.

We have too much evidence showing that Chris Tapp wasn't there. Have you ever found DNA that matched Chris Tapp at the scene? No. But police chief Mark McBride maintained that given Tapp's confession, the absence of his DNA at the crime scene proved nothing. Then, in a stunning turn of events, the district attorney's office wanted to make a deal. Tapp's murder conviction would stand,

but the rape conviction would go away, and there would be no probation. Chris Tapp would just take his lumps on his 20 years and walk a free man. Victory! Victory! Tapp took the deal. That was two years ago. And now... I've got a full-time job. I'm married.

I've actually become that productive member of society that I truly thought I could become. Meanwhile, Carol Dodge never stopped hunting for Angie's killer. I've done a lot of research on technology, and I was bound to determine I was going to solve my daughter's case. Not long after Chris's release, Carol got some help. New police chief Bryce Johnson says he already had his sights set on Angie's case. I talked to all the detectives and I kind of told them, let's not worry about what's been done over the past 23 years. We have one mission. It's to find out who left this DNA sample. It wasn't easy, but two years later, there was news.

Today, we are here to share developments in the homicide investigation of Angie Dodge. On May 16th, 2019. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Chief Johnson told the world they had finally found and arrested the man who matched the DNA. Carol inspired us all to try harder and to do better. The thing about Carol is she knew more about DNA than I knew about DNA. What Carol knew is that this woman, Good afternoon.

Z.C. Moore and a company called Parabon Nanolabs had been making huge strides in solving cold cases using genealogy and public databases. This is our 56th case this year at Parabon using genetic genealogy to identify unknown suspects and victims. Moore and Parabon were able to generate an even more complete DNA profile of Angie's killer than ever before. That profile could now be uploaded to a large public DNA database called GEDmatch, a free website that allows people to upload their own DNA profiles in search of relatives. In return, if users opt in, their data can be accessed by law enforcement. When we upload that data, we get a list of people that share significant amounts of DNA with the unknown suspect.

Moore found a family tree that she was confident contained a killer. And it was Michael Usry's family tree. and it was Michael Usry's family tree. He apparently was a split off of the Usry family from something like over 100 years ago. So we're talking about Wright family tree, but the branch is way off on the other side. Way off, yeah. Did you know anything about this sort of offshoot of your family?

No, totally not. Did you know anything about this sort of offshoot of your family? No, totally not. Now Detective Sage Albright and Captain Bill Squires were laser-focused on the men in this way-off branch of Usry's family tree. It had been whittled down to a list of persons that I think was around 10 or 11 people that we were able to reduce down further just because they weren't in Idaho at the time or they were three years old at the time. Left with six possible suspects, detectives had to secretly collect their DNA, following them around for days, waiting for discarded cigarette butts, soda cans, or plastic straws.

One guy was a tobacco chewer. The detectives came out, kind of scooped that up. We sent it off to the lab, came back negative. It wasn't the person we're looking for. Then they started running out of men, and a fear set in. The thing we were concerned about, is there a child out there that nobody knows about, right? Did someone have a baby and it's not in the genealogy record? They were right, and this obituary

miraculously led CeCe Moore to a missing usry. This woman, Helen Darnell, had a daughter who was once married to an usry. After their divorce, a son was born under a different last name, Brian Dripps. When we looked at that name, Brian Dripps. When we looked at that name, we realized we had talked to him in the first days of the investigation,

he lived across the street from Angie. I literally said, you got to be kidding. Brian Dripps, he was right across the street. That it took me 23 years when they had it in the first 25 pages of the investigation. The police report indicates that the day of Angie's murder, a young police officer who was canvassing the neighborhood had briefly questioned a then 31-year-old Brian Dripps. Everyone in that neighborhood got a knock on the door. Dripps denied any knowledge of the crime, and police never asked for his DNA.

About seven weeks after the murder, Dripps left Idaho Falls. He was living in Idaho, about 300 miles away, when a cigarette butt linked his DNA to the crime, and detectives picked him up for questioning. It was obvious he was nervous. He put on a pretty good game face, but his hands started to shake. For several hours, Dripps denied any involvement in Angie's death. And then when we told him, oh, we have your DNA at the crime scene,

there was a noticeable change in his demeanor, and eventually he told us that he had been involved. Detective Albright says Tripps also reported that he acted alone. That meant Chris Tapp could not have been there. Two months after Tripps was arrested, Tapp was back in court. As per convincing evidence, the defendant was convicted of a crime for which he did not connect. This time to be fully exonerated. This case is the world's first exoneration by way of genealogical DNA testing.

I'm extremely happy for him. I hope that he can piece together his life again. But Usry says he still has doubts about the use of genealogy. Kind of a scary thing to me to think about what this world is going to be like if all of our genetic codes are in a computer database. Once it's in a computer, that's almost like more permanent than carving something in stone nowadays. But I think that we really, really need to be cautious and take a step back and look at this technology. Carol Dodge disagrees. Without technology, without genealogy research, we would have never found Angie's killer.

It is the key that opens the door to justice. Brian Dripps has pleaded not guilty and is in custody awaiting trial. Carol Dodge and her son Brent have started the non-profit Five for Hope to raise money for underfunded cold case foundations and police departments how hard would it be for someone to get your DNA without you knowing learn how investigators do it on Facebook at 48 hours if you like this podcast you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app before you go tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.