"No Good Explanation"

Really? I think it's fun, my story is total. Steuja, how do you feel about it? The Steuja is really hot?

“Yeah, I've been watching over thousands of euros.”

Ha, do you have any connections? No, just like Steuja's. Wow, and that's really cool. Of course, the purpose is to make everything automatic. Suddenly, I feel like I'm so relaxed.

Hold your money, Ty from a Span, with like Steuja. By mid January 1997, the Idaho Falls Police have interviewed Chris Tape 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. Bring their canvas 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.

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

We just have to think about that. Chris says he doesn't think the DNA will be his. 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 Tape, which means the physical evidence that investigators are working with does not tie Ben Hobbes or Chris Tape 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.

The ask was there another person in Angie's apartment he can tell them about. Can you protect him, so I have to take nobody to work? From ABC Audio and 2020, I'm Navi Rouly, 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 was so deceptive that he was going off the charts. 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 please start to turn their attention to another young man, who's been the summer of 1996, hanging out at the Snake River, Jeremy Sorge's, a friend of Ben and Chris. And first, when the officer asks Chris, if Jeremy was there, Chris has known. But 20 minutes into the polygraph, the officer insists, "Tell me the other person who's there."

And Chris replies, "Maybe Jared was." 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.

"You can't help Jared. Oh, no. Okay. He's already (bleep) So, did you, Ben, Jared?

Jared, let's just look together."

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 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, this time, 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?" "I want to share it down on you, but you know that you're going to share it down on you."

“"Well, hold this, Jared, I'm, I think it's just an action."”

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." "Jermy's charges had 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 has an attorney, and we're going to work to deal a lot with him. Okay?

What do you think, accessory to murder is going to get you? Give me? Yep. Not a damn thing. Not a damn thing.

“Jeremy said, "Jermy'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. Jeremy didn't take their word for it. He demanded to see the results. He was aggravated at the end of his rope." "Jermy, 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." "Rill's is, you're not kind of clean, my friend. That's for real. Okay? I know.

I don't get right away. Why do you think we have you back in here? Do you think we'd be wasted in our time and waste in your time if we didn't think you're involved here? We're not going to waste in the time if we're barking up, we're all in change and making

all. I mean, totally into all of yourself. You really are. Excuse me? I'm making a full head of mine, too, help?

Yeah. Did I didn't be--?

“I'm making a full out of mine, too, I think--”

I think you'd better stand up the look and the flip and mirror, though. The officers slammed the door of the interrogation room shut. Some like 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.

But days after this interview with Jeremy Sargis, 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? Is he the only one who's been in the interrogation room for a while?

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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 return 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 don't know what the hell did that 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. But 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 can 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 it, okay. I did try it, man. I'm sure she did. I mean, come on, man. I'm here to hear the heat of the moment. She's putting up the fight. We could cut up it and yeah, I know. 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 in 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 it 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 Sarges 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 Andy's murder. Eventually, the charge was dropped and he was cleared as a suspect. Ben Homs wasn't charged. Besides, Chris'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 tapped continued to talk to police. Only Chris would stand trial. Only Chris would face Angie's mom in the courtroom.

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 severed 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 around 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, Veretab, 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 wittled down to twelve, 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. 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?”

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“Just two days after closing arguments, the jury returned to verdict in one of the biggest trials in Idaho Falls history.”

Chris Tap was found guilty of murder and rape and evusing a deadly weapon to commit both crimes. After the verdict, local TV station, KIFI, interviewed Chris's attorney outside the courthouse. He said, "Christmaintained his composure inside, but stopped 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. 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 fistfight and never seen him yell at anybody."

“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 and he was locked up. You know, I mean, you feel a lot of emotions through something like that. And a lot of emotions, and he just can't unfel. 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 at, like, I'm capable of hurting somebody to that level. I mean, it's brutal. A lot of people thought that I should have been in prison too. Jeremy said this groovy, the rumors, they all got to be too much. He moved out of 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.

The born there, I'm supposed to stay there, I'm 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 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 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.

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 tale? What anybody wake up? This town is to wake up. Take your planers off for health sex. 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 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 the 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 what's happening today, when I would just nothing, I'd go, you just sit there because I'm going out into 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. She was 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 center's missing.

If 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 dodged made a decision that would change her life and crisis. Carol, I've 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 Tapp'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. You had no involvement where you started to come clean on some stuff, but you still won't mind.

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 going to work with you guys. I don't know what the hell we're going to do. I'm trying to give it to you. I mean, it's all I can to do.

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

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“The snare is a production of ABC Audio in 2020.”

Hosted by me, Maggie Rulley, produced by Camille Petersen and Sabrina Fang with help from Emily Selinder 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 Dendoss, Janice Johnston, Nancy Rosenbaum,”

Sasha Aslinian, Suzanne DeConto, and Michelle Margallis.

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

“One online predator unleashed hell on his targets.”

An internet terrorist. For the young female gamers he's hunting, there's 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?

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