The Snare, Episode 3: "No Good Explanation"

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If you like your true crime, like you like your coffee, red-handed is the podcast for you. It's dark, intense, and might just keep you up all night, I'm Hannah, I'm Serity, and every week on Red-handed, we break down a different fascinating case. From the most recent U.S. trials, everyone is obsessing over, like Brendan Banfield, Karen Reed, and Ellen Greenberg, to the most unbelievable stories from around the world. There's nothing we love more than digging into every detail of the cases we cover, getting beyond a basic analysis and cutting to the heart of the story.

Red-handed has over 400 episodes, ready to binge, right now. Plus, be sure to check out our weekly sister show, Shorthand, where we unpack everything from the Black Death to Area 51. If you're looking for smart, detailed true crime with personality, check out Red-handed wherever you get your podcasts. By mid-January 1997, the Idaho Falls Police have interviewed Chris Tap 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?" "I don't remember touching anything, but it might be." During their canvas of Angie's neighborhood and their interviews with people who knew her, Police say they collected around 100 DNA samples.

The officers tell Chris their biggest fear is that the DNA samples will match him.

“Our biggest concern right now is that DNA of Martin, right?”

So, we just have to think about that. Chris says he doesn't think the DNA will be his. "I'm not completely, I'm not taking my leave." 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 Tap, which means the physical evidence that investigators are working with does not tie Ben Hobbes or Chris Tap 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. "Your ass is a deep truth. Okay." They ask, "Was there another person in Angie's apartment he can tell them about?" "Can we do protect him so that I can take nobody to work?"

From ABC audio and 2020, I'm not here early. And this is the snare. Episode 3, no good explanation. When Chris sits down for his polygraph on January 18th,

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 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, "Are you, Jeremy, and Ben there?" Remember, no evidence ties Ben Hobbes 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's been the summer of 1996 hanging out at the snake river. Jeremy's charges, a friend of Ben and Chris. At first, when the officer asked Chris if Jeremy was there, Chris has no. But 20 minutes into the polygraph, the officer insists,

"Tell me the other person who's there."

Maybe Jared 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. She can't help Jared at all. He's already (beep) So, did you, Ben, Jared?

Jared, let's just put your other. Let's just put Jared 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, "Jermy held the 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 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, Chris tells investigators, "Jermy held Angie down by her arms and eventually raped her." Officers ask, "Why it's taking Chris so long to tell them this?" "What is Jared done on you?" "You know that you're going to say, "God, I don't know."

"Well, hold this Jared out." "I think it's just an issue." Chris says, "He and Jeremy were good friends." That they spend a lot of time over the summer at the Snake River together, hanging out. The officer asks, "If Jeremy ever threatened Chris."

" Jared never threatened."

Jeremy's sergeant has been on the police radar for a while. He was known as one of Ben Hobbes's 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 and the attorney, and we're going to work to deal out with them, okay?”

What do you think accessory to murder is going to get you? Give me? Yep. I don't think. Not a damn thing.

Jeremy said.

Jeremy's tone with the officers was very different from Chris Tapps.

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 at the end of his rope.

I want to see it. I want to know how the polygraph works before I'm going to believe that. 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.

To the end of his interview, things reached a boiling point. Reals is not coming clean, my friend. That's for real. Okay. I know.

I don't get right away. Why do you think that we have you back in here?

“Do you think we'd be wasting our time and waste in your time if we didn't think you're a volunteer?”

Normally, you're wasting your time if you're barking up your own chain and making all. I mean, totally enjoy yourself. You really are. Excuse me? I'm making a full head of mine, too.

Yeah. Did I didn't be (bleep) I'm making a full out of mine, too. I think you better stand up and look at the flip and mirror. The officers slammed the door of the interrogation room shut.

Unlike Chris Tap, 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.

the officers now have Chris Tap 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? Meditians, yoga, jogging, nothing is in spandwich. Really? Michean Spandman is a steyer, total. Steuer?

Wiefinance Amt? Die Steiner, Ecléron? Yeah. I have a whole locker over 1,000 euros. Has your own connections?

No, no, they are steuer. Wow. And that is easy?

Of course, they are all automatic.

Suddenly I feel like I am a Spand. Hold it and get to go. Tie a Spand with Viso Steuer.

“One online predator unleashed hell on his targets.”

An internet terrorist. For the young female gamers he is hunting, there is no getting away. It was unrelenting. The cops need to figure out who he is and stop him before it's too late.

How is he doing all of this? From Sony Music Entertainment and novel, this is you our next available now on the binge. Search for you our next wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. On Carter Roy, the host of Murder True Crime Stories.

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Investigators ultimately get more DNA results back.

And they find out the DNA does not match Jeremy Sarges. 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 returned to Chris' tap.

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. I know what the hell they've want for me, but I'm trying to give it to you. 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 wasn't 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. "I would, if I could, I would, Jesus Christ, I would. But I know I didn't give you every God they are naming a book." The officers start suggesting to Chris that maybe he held Angie down.

Maybe he even cut her. I knew I didn't cut her. Okay. Maybe I did try her. I'm sure she did.

I mean, come on, man. I mean, I heard the heat of the moment. She's putting up the fight. We could cut up it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You just, that's not my style. That's not me. 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 is 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.

Eventually, according to police reports, Chris tells his attorney that he does not want to talk anymore.

“That if you remember something, he will contact the police.”

Chris was charged with first-degree murder and rape.

The accessory to a felony charge was dropped. Jeremy Sorgis was charged to with being an accessory to a felony. But Jeremy was not a DNA match and had an alibi for the night of Andy's murder. Eventually, the charge was dropped and he was cleared as a suspect. Ben Homs wasn't charged.

Besides, Chris' 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' tap 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, Chris taps 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 savered the freedom of youth in summer. Brian Clark, a reporter in eastern Idaho, says a high profile case like this was rare in Idaho Falls.

It was an unusual trial for her and here was highly publicized.

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 taps mom, Vera Tap, were both in the courtroom.

The jury for Chris's trial was carefully selected. According to the Idaho Falls post-register, a pool of a hundred people was whittled down to 12. Nine women and three men. By the time the trial started, Chris had a new lawyer.

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's interviews with the police were played for the jury. Only about an hour total of the interrogation tapes. They were selected pieces. The jury didn't watch fowards of interrogations.

They saw him confessing to doing it to participate in the crime. 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. At trial, Chris tap was silent. Just seemed like no motion, Carol. Had uncontrollable pain, sobbing and crying,

and just very difficult to be there. Knowing that he couldn't do anything to make it better for her. 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 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.

But what did jury think?

“Would they see a man who gave a false confession like the defense alleged?”

Or a man responsible for Angie's death? This is in God's hands now. There will be justice.

All of it right here.

Lock in is the WMBA on ESPN.

All season long.

“I'm Harvey Guillain, and this is Killer Stories.”

Every Monday, I'm cutting the lights. I'm telling you, a bedtime story. Except, these stories are all real. We're talking brazen-highest. Devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories.

So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Guillain, every Monday. Just two days after closing arguments, the jury returned a verdict in one of the biggest trials in Idaho Falls history.

Chris Tap 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's attorney outside the courthouse. He said, "Cristly tamed his composure inside,

“but sobbed on his shoulder once they left."”

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. Carol Dodge was interviewed outside the courthouse too, and said, "She wanted to thank the jury."

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. Thank you.

Jeremy Sarges, once implicated by Chris and Angie's murder during police interviews, but ultimately cleared as a suspect, found it hard to believe his friend Chris was guilty. 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 what in the world are they thinking this guy did?”

I felt a lot of emotions when Chris went away anger. It was hurt. I was worried. It was glad that he was gone. He was locked up.

You know, I mean, he'd feel a lot of emotions through something like that, and a lot of emotions that he just can't un-feel. It was a difficult time of life. Jeremy felt that even though his accessory to a felony charge had been dropped, people in Idaho Falls were still suspicious of him.

One day, we're just kids hanging out down at the river. The next day, my two best friends are in prison. And now I'm looking at being looked out, like I'm capable of hurting somebody to that level. I mean, it's brutal.

It's a lot of people thought that I should have been in prison too. Jeremy said the scrutiny, the rumors. They all got to be too much. He moved out to Idaho Falls. 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. I'm really sad that I missed out on that. I'm really sad that I missed out on time with my mom. I'm sad that I had to give up friendships for my dough 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.

In December 1998, Chris Tap 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. We felt that he should be taking care of like he did to our friend. The judge said he was considering a lot of mitigating circumstances in his sentencing.

That he was under the influence of drugs during the crime.

“That he has a tension 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. Christopher Tap did not personally inflict the moral wound on Angie Touch. 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 done to her daughter.

“Doesn't anybody understand what's going on in this town?”

What anybody wake up? This town needs to wake up. 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 who's DNA was found at the crime scene. They hadn't caught everybody there was still a murder or out there. And Brian Clark says there was one person in particular who applied pressure on the Idaho Falls police to keep investigating. Carol Dodge is a force of danger.

“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'd do more to find her daughter's killer that they eventually put in a set of doors that are now called to Carol doors to keep her from doing that. 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. I'd walk in there and I'd say it was happening today when I was just nothing. I go, you just sit there because I'm going out to the streets tonight. Carol didn't wait for a 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 four, five 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.

I look at Angie's case and there's so many pieces. I've been trying to put this puzzle together and the setters missing. 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 crisis. Carol had been revisiting every aspect of the police's investigation. I kept going back and forth and I kept reading all of the documents and reading the different reports that I had accumulated. As part of that, Carol got a hold of recordings of Chris Tap's many interrogations and polygraph tests. It was nearly 60 hours of footage.

She thought maybe there was something in those tapes that could lead her to some answers. So she decided to watch all of the footage.

She says it was her first time sitting down to watch the video tapes.

“Until that moment, she'd only seen snippets of Chris's interrogation,”

just the parts that were played during his trial.

I mean, okay, I'm willing to work with you guys. I don't know what the hell we could do. I'm trying to get it to you.

I mean, it's all I can't do.

“And as Carol watched those hours and hours of footage, she says she realized something.”

Everything she thought she knew about Chris Tap's role in her daughter's murder might be wrong.

[ Music ] The snare is a production of ABC Audio and 2020.

“Hosted by me, Maggie Rooley, produced by Camille Peterson and Sabrina Fang,”

with help from Annalisa Lindor and Emily Schutz. Edited by Tracy Samelson, our supervising producer, is Susie Lou, music by Evan Viola, mixing by Bob Mallory. Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janice Johnston, Nancy Rosenbaum, Sasha Aslanian, Suzanne DeCunto, and Michelle Margallis.

Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Amy McNiff is our executive producer. [ Music ] [ Silence ]