her father, her mother, snatches of memory, ever farther away. >> that's all for this edition i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. thank you for watching. thank you for watching ♪ god, no! please, no! this can't be real! >> a teenager home alone in a night of terror. >> the windows. and trying to figure out how scared she must have been! >>t on her body like a signatu a hand print in blood. >> it was a crime of passion. theree was a lot of anger involved in this. but hang on! because that hand print doesn't belong to the man the police put in prison.

>> the anger searched through knee. >> a mother turnshe detective. >> hertu words i'll never forgo is, i just want to know what happened to my daughter. >> joinha in as she hunts for a killer and searches for the truth. >> i wanted to put my fist through the tv! >> it stillug brings a hair up the back of my neck. ♪ hello. welcome to "dateline." a confession can break a murder investigation wide open. it certainlyve did in this stor. soon after 19-year-old angie dodge was found stabbed to death in her apartment a local christopher tapp admitted he was one of her killers. police convinced they had cracked the case but years later there was someone else who thought those tapes might tell a different story. here is keith morrison with "the

confession." >> reporter: we they want him here. deep inside the multiple walls and armed doors of the rolls and rolls and razor wire. the confessed stabber. the convicted killer that sweet young woman all of those years ago. he is t lucky to be alive, probably. given the nature of the crime and the appeals on that girl's mother for the death sentence which made what that mother told us later on very puzzling, indeed. >> let him go. it's the only thing his mother has. it's her only child. let him go. >> reporter: her name is carol dodge. the amazing story she would tell us began on the worst day of her life. it was a thursday, june 13th, 1996, mid-morning. she placed a call to a beauty salon to talk to her daughter angie.

>> i dialed angie's number at work and a lady answered. i said this is carol dodge, angie's mom. she said, angie has been found dead. >> reporter: she was in the home? >> i said, god, no, please, no. this can't be real. >> reporter: it happened it turned out the night before in the tiny second floor walk-up where the independent 18-year-old had just started to build her life. stabbed to death. her throat cut and carol was haunted by a conversation she had had with angie that very week. >> that's when she had to me, you know,ad mom, i've done something real stupid. >> reporter: did you say to her what did you do? >> i don't. i didn't want to pry. >> reporter: whatan could that something stupid have been? did it lead to murder? idaho falls, idaho, big blue heaven above and a temple below to anchor the town and signal like a beacon, its moral core of

american. three dodge boys and one girl named angie whose birth occasion brother brent remembers was the biggest celebration of all. >> that was a pinnacle for my parents to have api baby girl. >> reporter: little angie was one ofep those kid who learned about independence early on and who grew up busy and strong and stubborn. >> angie was 5'11" and she was strong. >> reporter: but, of course big can be a problem for a girl. asro a teenager, she was too ta, too awkward. she struggled. and to make it worse, her parents' marriage fell apart. >> that'sag when angie went and just made friend with whoever accepted her. >> reporter: among angie's new friend was jessica n martinez. >> we want to be accepted not for what we looked like but for the people we were. >> reporter: back then, carol worried a lot about those new

friend and didn't know they, like angie, had big plans. >> she wanted to go to college and just be the best person that she could be. >> reporter: suddenly, inat thi little deapartment, angie's lif was over. and carol restricten and dayed and endured a murder investigation. >> we clearly thought that there had been some sort of relationship there because it was a crime of passion. >> reporter: jared and ken brown were back then detectives in the idaho falls p.d. and angie's boyfriend was out of town. her other friend seemed to have ali alibi took so they turned to this bloody hand print on angie's stomach. she felt he pulled down her pants and pulled up her shirt and left a positive semen on her body and a lot of marks and dna and frustration for the cops because thatus dna didn't match

any of their possible suspects. month after month, they chased lead into disappointing dead-end and all the while carol dodge haunted the investigation and practically stalked the investigators and begged them to find a killer. >> i drove to the police department every day they were open. >> reporter: dead of winter january of '97 an arrest next door in nevada broke the case wide open. in custody was benjamin hobbs. one of those less savory friend of angie. here he is at angie's funeral carryinggi flowers. get this. hobbs was now charged with sexually assaulting a woman at knife point. sound familiar? so while detective ken brown rushed off to question hobbs, detective jared furman began to talk to hobbs' friends. o talk to hobbs' friends one of whom was a 20-year-old

named christopher tapp. tapp was no felon but he was an admitted druggy and chris tapp had a bit of a history with ex-school resource officer, now detective, furman. he was ine, trouble a time or t? >> he was. just trying to help him out. he trusted furman but didn't know anything ed about angie's murder. having made his statement, christopher tapp went home in the clear, apparently. a couple of days late, the detectives asked him to come downtown again. >> i told him, i said, what are you doing? i said this is a murder case. >> reporter: this is tapp's mother vera. she understooder what he apparentlyto did not that her s was quite possibly talking himself into very big trouble. >> ed, mom, i don't have anything to hide and i want to

tell them that i don't know anything. >> reporter: but it didn't quith work>> out that way. before long, chris tapp had written a statement for police saying,r ben hobbs said he kild her andho i just laughed it off like he was just telling l me a joke. but that was just the beginning. over theg. next several weeks, they had tapp in here nine times, questioned him 20 hours. even gave him an immunity deal and that is when mr. tapp's story began to evolve. yes, he admitted he was there when ben hobbs killed angie and even held her down when ben stabbed her and he said he stabbed her once d himself. the motive? revenge. supposedly angie had been meddling in ben's marriage and hobbs didn't like that a bit so they asked him a question about angie. t angie.

and lo and behold he was right. that dna result came back and the semen found on angie's body didn't belong to ben hobbs or chris tapp. neither one of them. what went your head when the dna results came back and it showed theit attacker was not ben hobb? >> if you nail it down to one word, it's frustration. >> reporter: the detectivesrd decided that didn't mean chris was lying or that the thoroueor the crime was wrong. . may only mean they decided to expand the theory. the two werehe guilty they were sure of it g so the mystery dna must have come from a third man, a third attacker. so they put tapp back in a littlek interrogation room and asked him was a third man involved in the crime? and sure enough chris tapp said, yes, there was a third man. but no matter how many times detectives noasked, he couldn'tr

wouldn't tell them who it was. so prosecutors made a decision, if tapp wasn't going to tell them the whole truth he wouldn't get his deal. chris tapp was charged with murder but only chris. not enough evidence to go after hobbs or anyone else. the announcement caught carol dodge by surprise and detectives had kept her in the dark until now. but one look at christopher tapp in court she knew she wanted him dead. >> it was final i was looking somebody in the eye i thought devil who had taken my daughter's life. >> reporter: chris tapp was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison a for angie's murder and 20 years for rape. which is when carol dodge's odyssey really began. her own investigation filled with danger and surprise as a very troubling discoveries. >> one discovery so disturbing that angie's mother reached out

for help. coming up. >> the anger just surged through me. >> it still brings the hair up on the back of my neck. >> when "dateline" continues. ws advantage ii, kills fleas through contact all month long. i mean he's a wreck without me. advantage ii, fight the misery of biting fleas. oh, come on. flo: don't worry. you're covered. (dramatic music) and you're saving money, because you bundled home and auto. sarah, get in the house. we're all here for you. all: all day, all night. (dramatic music) great job speaking calmly and clearly everyone. that's how you put a customer at ease. hey, did anyone else hear weird voices while they were in the corn? no. no. me either. whispering voice: jamie. what? you should know the location of a decent bathroom.ation, my gut says, take new benefiber healthy balance. this daily supplement

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fight the misery of infesting fleas. in the years after angie dodge's murder, the man who confessed to taking part in her killing christopher tapp was

safely tucked away in prison. the police told carol they couldn't find that third man, the one who left his dna on an angie's body. that is when carol became, her word, obsessed. if the police couldn't track down her daughter's killer, then she would. >> the anger just surged through me and that is when i went to the streets and i literally but 60,000 miles on my truck searching for her killer. >> reporter: you put yourself in harm's way? >> oh, absolutely. i remember going to a place and a lady said you need to leave before somebody hitters you. >> reporter: that is how the days and weeks passed. >> hi a gun put to my head one night. >> reporter: lead that never panned out and carol would park outside of that apartment.

>> i would stair at that house and stare at the window and try to figure out how scared she must have been. >> reporter: something else carol couldn't stop doing. reading police reports. practically memorizing them. >> it never made sense. >> reporter: in one of those reports carol found a phrase the more she read it found out of place in a dna world. it was about pubic hairs, which in addition to the simon, had been found on angie's body. >> it was written in this lab report that it was the same as the victim. i said to myself, it's either angie's or it's not angie's. it can't be either/or. >> reporter: then carol remembered reading an article about an internationally known dna expert who just so happened to live and work right in idaho. how does it feel to be a

recognized dna expert? >> it's fun. i did fruit flies. nobody invited me to talk on television! >> reporter: this is the expert, a fruit fly geneticist. his work is not all done in the classroom. in fact, his own path changed in 2004 when he was asked to test some dan that led to an innocent man being freed from prison in georgia. he and another doctor wrote a book together and like the doctor found a new calling. he is now in high demand. in 2011, he was part of the team credited with free ago man an american college student freed in italy, amanda knox. he is the founder and director of idaho's innocent project. >> it's an unfortunate name our

name is innocence. honestly, i've worked on, i think, 13 exoneration now. four of the ones in georgia, they found the actual perpetrator so to those four guys i'm the guilty project. >> reporter: the coincidence you couldn't just make up. the very week carol left a phone message for him asking for help, idaho's science project had just taken on a new case. the case of the man convicted of killing carol's daughter, christopher tapp. the doctor called carol back. >> her word to me, i'll never forgot was i just want take know what happened to my daughter and, you know, it still brings the hair up on the back of my neck. >> reporter: curiosity of her surprise you? >> the knowledge surprised me. she has turned all of that love and devotion for her daughter into a very careful record of this case. >> reporter: so she read that report to him, the one that said the pubic hairs found on angie

were similar to or the same as the victim. >> reporter: he said they either hers or they are not. >> just as you thought. >> ed where are the hairs? >> i said, i assume that they are still in evidence. >> reporter: so they called the idaho falls police department which found the hairs in an envelope in the evidence room where they shall be stored all of those year. after carol's calls though pubic hairs were sent offer to the crime lab where dna tests showed that chris tapp was there at the cream scene and ben hobbs was there at the crime scene, or that the entirety of the physical evidence was left by one unknown third man. that was a fundamental question that was huge. the answer from the dna? left no doubt. >> only one person who did this in term of the dna. >> reporter: one killer. the science said there was no evidence there were three attackers in angie's apartment that night as the police had theorized but just one.

an that remarkable news could mean only one thing, at least according to the idaho innocence. chris tapp was not there. he was an innocent man. the thoroueory of multiple kill ridiculous said the doctor. >> to imagine there was a group of criminals who know about dna and are so careful what do they do? they planted somebody else's semen in pubic hair and cleaned up their own dna. >> reporter: as you might well imagine that conclusion that chris tapp had to be innocent that the killer had ner been caught came down like a hammer to the head on angie's mother. >> i was extremely angry. when they have dna, not once, but twice, that belongs to the same person and it's not chris tapp, something is wrong. >> reporter: so what do you do? >> i met with the chief and i

asked for copies of all of the videotapes. >> reporter: those videotapes, the one that chris tapp confessed to the murder and carol knew the most about the case but what she had not done is watch the 20 hours of the chris tapp interrogation. now, she did, watch every minute. and when she was done, carol dodge was a changed woman. looking at a brand-new case. >> coming up, the tale of the tapes. what exactly had she found? when we continue. when we continue nsurance unless you're complaining about it. you go on about how... ...it's so confusing it hurts my brain. ya i hear ya... or say you can't believe... ...how much of a hassle it is! and tell anyone who'll listen... (garbled)....it's so expensive! she said it's so expensive. tell me about it. yes.. well i'm telling the people at home. that's why esurance is making the whole experience

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more than a dozen years after her daughter's murder, the ground beneath carol dodge's feet was quaking. new dna tests reveal that none of the physical evidence implicated confessed murderer christopher tapp but pointed instead to some mystery man still at large. and the woman when had relent relentlessly prodded the idaho police department. >> for 13 years they had me convinced that chris tapp was there. all they kept saying is he

confessed, carol, he confessed. >> reporter: but was it a real confession? carol asked for and got a complete set of tapp's videotaped confessions and what she saw amazed her. by this time, of course, she knew so much more than she had a decade before. knew, for example, that then detective jared furman, who ran the interviews had been a school resource officer. well known for a young chris tapp. >> i trust you and hopefully you trust me, okay. >> reporter: furman kept telling chris, just trust me, chris, you got to trust me. we go way back, chris. and i think he was taught to respect adult and he was a follower. >> reporter: she watched as chris insisted he knew nothing. then she saw detectives, as they are trained to do, subtly make tapp an active participant. >> hypothetically, chris, how do

you think it happened? i remember chris saying, you mean like a tv show? >> reporter: next, she saw police administering polygraph after polygraph and almost always with the same result, they would tell him he was deceptive and how when tapp was promised immunity, his story about ben hobbs changed. but perhaps what troubled carol the most was seeing how confused tapp was. even ten days after his first interviews, he still seemed not to know what house angie lived in. police, carol noticed, kept correcting him. for a guy who had taken part in a murder, tapp also seemed not to know much about the layout of angie's apartment. when they asked him to draw it, he couldn't do it.

detectives even perhaps inadvertently showed him where the murder occurred. oh, yes. there was more. police had always told carol that chris tapp knew things that only the killer would know. the location and position of angie's body, the clothes she was wearing. well, now carol could see for herself on tape the reason chris would know those things. carol was stunned to see police had shown tapp photos of the crime scene. >> there is times that i wanted to put my fist through the tv. >> reporter: and, finally, remember that the police theory of the crime after dna didn't match tapp or hobbs was three people admitted the murder together. the detectives spent hours

literally trying to drag the name of that third man out of tapp and when carol saw the tape, well, you watch it. >> by the time you had gone through all of those tapes, what did you think about chris tapp, the man you believed up a of those years -- >> how did they do this to me? how have they managed to keep someone in prison for all these years and it's a possibility he is not there. >> reporter: after that eureka moment, carol dodge made a decision. she would do more than search to find her daughter's killer. she was actively work to free christopher tapp, the only man convicted of the murder. >> i think that chris' case truly got taken seriously after i made my contact with boise state. >> she was the first victim's

family member who came forward to work with the innocence project on a case. she is the leading edge of a group of people who have come forward and said we just want to know what happened. >> reporter: no matter who is on his side, chris tapp was face-to-face with two very uncomfortable truth. one, year of appeal had none don't go to novoverturn his position and the detective had gone on and he was convinced that chris tapp was guilty. coming up. >> he took us into the bedroom and relived that night. and you could see it on his face. >> when "dateline" continues. hes protect your pet with the #1 name

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multiple calls for investigation after jeffrey epstein was found dead of an apparent sued at a federal lock-up in new york city. epstein who was facing sex trafficking charges had just been taken off sued watch by officials. president trump revealed the contents of what he calls a beautiful letter from kim jong-un. trump says kim offered an apology for recent missile tests claiming they would stop after joint south korean military exercises end. now back to "dateline." ♪ welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. more than a dozen years had passed since the murder of angie dodge. convicted killer chris tapp admitted his role in the crime but angie's mother carol was convinced that chris' confession was coerced and not true said the investigators and what made them so confident? well, we asked him and were told about something that could not

be found on the tapes. here again is keith morrison with o"the confession." >> reporter: by the time we visited the city of idaho falls. >> if there is dna, for god's sake, believe the science. people are not that accurate. the dna is very precise. >> reporter: and 15 years after the murder of her daughter, angie's own mother carol dodge had done what was once unthinkable. she had joined forces with the innocence project. >> the city of idaho falls has got it wrong. >> reporter: you want somebody to take you seriously? >> yes. >> reporter: in the year since the murder, finding angie's killer had carol's reason for living. through three heart attacks the

death of an estranged husband and off and on battles with t s police she had to fight that in a new way. remember jared furman, the protective who befriended chris tapp in a previous position as school resources officer. >> the fellow who got that confession has come on to become the mayor of the town. does that have anything to do with it? >> people have to protect their story without looking any deeper and saying is this really accurate? >> reporter: so the police had taken a false perception and wrong man in prison and failed to find the real killer. when we spoke to the former detective and then mayor jared furman, ed, no, just not true. how did he know? it was furman who took tapp to visit the crime scene during some of those many interviews all of those years ago.

>> let me tell you, they waern in t weren't in the room with me when he took us up the stairs, took us into the bedroom and relived that night. you could see it on his face, he was reliving it. >> reporter: of course the critics wouldn't be able to see that because it was one of the only times during the investigation when the police did not videotape chris tapp. but. >> i have no doubts in my mind that chris tapp is part that have homicide. >> reporter: you can't because what is it? 25% of all dna revolved case where somebody is released from prison, it turns out was there a false confession. people do confess to things they didn't do. >> we know that but when people confess to crimes they don't know the minute details of that case and chris knew and knows the minute details of that case. >> reporter: he claims that he knows them because he was fed them. >> no.

we would politely disagree with that. >> reporter: is it possible at least that there was some suggestion involved in these things before he actually said them? >> for us to sit and say there was absolutely no possibility anything it happened we can't say that but we can say we have reviewed those tapes over and over. we had a jury who reviewed those tapes. >> reporter: there are two guys who interviewed this person over and over again and found that in the first interview, the second interview, the third interview, is fourth interview, the fifth interview he lied like a sidewalk, then you finally get to the seventh interview and that is the gospel truth? >> no, absolutely not. during each of the interviews he was bringing out information he knew and was not fed to and the color of clothes she was wearing the position of the clothes and how many times he was stabbed and the diagram on where she was at in the room. >> reporter: interesting. many times as the interviews progressed, chris tapp claimed to know nothing about the clothes angie dodge was wearing.

>> reporter: but some details in the interview could be interpreted to back up the claims by police. once, for example, before tapp was shown the crime scene photos, he seems to and in a guessing kind of way know what angie was wearing. although he is wrong with the color of her clothes, after being asked many times if her clothes were half on or half off or pulled up or pushed down, he does correctly say this about her pants. also said the detectives, chris talked about ben hobbs hitting angie behind the ear and? >> we have the evidence to back it. we have bruising where he says that ben hit her. >> reporter: so detectives insisted they were right. ben hobbs was the ring leader,

chris tapp was involved in the attack, and unknown third man left the dna in the form of semen. three attackers. the identity of the third is still a secret, unrevealed by either the other two all of those years later. and about the fact that carol dodge now disagreed with their theory and was supporting chris tapp, the only man in prison for the murder? what is it like to know that carol is actively campaigning for his release, believes an innocent man? >> i think that is part of the process. >> in some respects, her heart has been broken. >> reporter: she is convinced gout the wrong guy. >> when i heard that i was i was genuinely surprised. >> it's been a roller coaster 16 years for her. today or tomorrow chris would be guilty in her mind. >> reporter: perhaps now is a good time to talk to the man in middle of all this. the serial confessor christopher

tapp. >> coming up. >> i didn't kill nobody. >> reporter: so why would he confess when "dateline" continues. confess when "dateline" continues. ion plan. just look at him! he's a wreck without me, ha... owww. fight the misery of infesting fleas. ♪ ♪ walgreens save your skin today all sun care products are now buy one get one 50% off. how do you keep feeling your best all summer long? start with supporting your gut health. only activia has billions of our live and active probiotics.

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all night wishing you love, sleep and play pampers there comes a time in every tale to meet the man of the center of the story and here he is. christopher tapp. no longer the aimless pot head you saw in those videotapes in

1997. when we met him he was a man who had done more than a decade of hard time. as people look at you, what do you most want them to know about you? >> i've been so wronged all these years. how could individuals do something to another human being like they have done to me? >> reporter: you're an innocent man? >> yes, sir, i am. >> reporter: of course everybody in prison is, right? >> if you look at the case and the dna, none of them points to me. >> reporter: on that point there is little dispute, of course. but how did chris tapp get here? that is a familiar story to many families. the sweet little boy shown in all of these pictures of a typical childhood and carefully kept business hi mom vera. starred smoking marijuana at 13 and at 16, turned to meth. chris dropped out of high school. stayed high every minute he could, he says, hanging out down

by the river in idaho falls that all of those kid his mother warned him about and he says that is how his name came up after the murder of angie dodge with police scouring for people who might left that dna after the murder so he was asked to submit dna. did you think anything of that? >> no. i had no rhyme, no reason to be scared. >> reporter: but then not a word. for months. until you'll recall january of 1997 when tapp was brought in for questioning after his friend ben hobbs was arrested for a nevada sexual attack which police said was similar to the murder of angie dodge. >> i didn't know what i was being brought in for. >> reporter: you didn't connect it with the angie thing at all? >> no. honestly, i thought i was going in for drugs. >> reporter: you've seen the course of several weeks chris tapp went from saying he knew nothing about angie's murder to being the only man charged in the case. just as his mother warned him.

how is your mother during all of this? >> frantic. i was honest with her. i said i had nothing with this, mom. he tri i tried to explain to her. i didn't really confess. it took days to a story where i actually made a conquestiofessi >> reporter: one of the difficulties your story kept changing. >> very much it did. >> reporter: you went to saying i didn't know anything about this to saying ben had something to do with it and then maybe is there a third guy involved. wait a minute. i was there. and, oh, yeah, i cut her. where did that come from? >> trying to give them what they wanted to hear to appease them. >> reporter: why would you say you cut her? >> because during that time mr. m furman said it doesn't matter. we will be able to help and you

help us. >> here it is is on the tape with detective furman in charge of the interview. be. >> reporter: do you believe that story? >> hook line and sinker. >> reporter: put yourself in that place and tell me what is going on inside of your stomach and your brain. >> scared. trying to figure out what they want just for them to leave me alone. >> reporter: why? >> i didn't kill nobody. i was never there the night the murder happened. they just kept focusing on if you were there.

if you did do it and held the knife, okay, we will help you so like an idiot, i believed them. >> reporter: so they charged you with murder? >> yes. >> reporter: by now chris tapp was fighting to clear his name with the support of not only his own mother and the innocence project, but of carol dodge, the victim's mother. carol dodge came around to your side. what was that like? >> it's an amazing feeling and i appreciate her finally understanding that i'm innocent. >> reporter: and as we spoke, for the first time in years, chris tapp had reason to feel one spark of possibility someone in a position to change his future was going to listen. coming up, a new chance at freedom. could that controversial confession get thrown out of court? >> if this confession goes, the state has almost no evidence.

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more than 15 years after angie dodge was murdered on a quiet street in idaho falls, something was about to change in the case of her confessed killer, christopher tapp. for the first time since his trial, a hearing on evidence was about to be held before a judge. and as chris tapp entered the courtroom, he and his supporters finally have reason for hope, not that the judge could review

the evidence and just declare tapp innocent, no, this would have to be based strictly on points of law. idaho's court of appeals had over the years thrown out all but one of tapp's videotaped interviews, that being the one where he said he took part in the crime, but in this hearing, it could be thrown out too, if the court decided he believed he was in custody when he said those incriminating things. if he thought he was unable to leave this little room because that would have violated his basic constitutional rights. tapp's attorneys dennis benjamin and john thomas. what's the best result from this, new trial, or is it possible to have any confirmation? >> if this confession goes, the state has almost no evidence. >> i think they'd have to dismiss the case. >> the stakes could not have been higher for mr. tapp. his mother vera sat right behind him. carol dodge was there too. two of her sons also.

>> they've got a lot at stake. if chris tapp walks free, then what? then it's who is the killer? >> the prosecution would rely on the word of former detective and current idaho falls mayor jared fuhriman. fuhriman ran the police interviews and said chris tapp was never technically in custody. >> was chris tapp free to leave? >> yes. >> that's funny, chris tapp's lawyers argued when it was their turn. how could a 20-year-old who'd been arrested twice and watched as the door was actually barred during some of his interviews. >> the only reason i'm doing it is so nobody comes in. >> how could that young man, who'd been questioned on and off for nearly a month, who spent a week of that time actually locked up in jail, who watched as immunity deals were offered and then later torn up -- how could that kid, the lawyer asked, be expected to believe he could leave whenever he wanted? >> did you think that, if you decided not to talk to the police, that you were going to be able to go home? >> no, i would not have been allowed to go home.

>> but tapp had to acknowledge when he was questioned by the prosecutor he had indeed lied over the years many times. including in sworn affidavits used in past appeals. >> you've admitted the fact that you lied on any number of occasions. and if you lied before, how can we believe you now? >> of course they're going to say i'm a liar now. he's just trying to save himself. but it's the truth. i'm innocent. i've never committed this crime. >> when testimony was over, it was up to the judge. would he order a new trial for chris tapp, or would he send him back to prison maybe for good? and then four months later, a ruling. chris tapp was never threatened, restrained, or handcuffed, said the judge, and thus was not in custody. appeal denied. >> it's quite a line, but the truth will set me free someday. >> and you're pretty convinced

of that? >> as the years go on, yeah. >> tapp's lawyers have vowed to continue that fight, as long as they have to. and for the first time since the murder, the two mothers at the center of the case can agree. >> you come home every day, and you think, i had a son. sooner or later, something's got to break. >> let him go. if the only thing his mother has. it's her only child. let him enjoy his mother. let his mother enjoy him. there's just two of them. that's all they have. the case is far from over. there were more motions two decades hf ace conviction in march 2017. a stunning twist.

prosecutors offered chris tapp a plea deal, vacating his rape conviction. chris had a decision to make. this was not an exxonerationexo. he'd be a killer and a free man. he'd he was resentenced with time served. no probation or parole. after 20 years behind bars. he left the hearing a free man. >> how re feeling? overwhelmed. completely over bhemed. >> as for dan hobbs. he still denies any involvement in angie's moifurder. he declined the request for an interview. the answer still lies not in the machinery of law but in science. that dna left at the scene. it points, he says, to the simplest explanation, not to a third man or even a second one. but just one. what are the chances that the

story is a secret that three people were involved? >> secrets can be kept. science reveals those secrets. somebody went in and committed a typical violent rape/murder and left typical evidence. there's no other person there by dna. where is he? >> where indeed? and carol dodge is still tortured, still pondering that last message from her angie that she had done something stupid. sounds to me like you believe she had crossed or double crossed somebody who was very dangerous. >> she crossed the line and didn't have any clue of what she had gotten herself into. >> and neither did she, carol admits. when she set out on a quest to find a killer, not finished, not yet. >> i'm never going to stop looking. one day i'm going to look that man in the eye.

one day he will be found. he'll be found. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. is. good morning. i'm jo ling kent in new york at msnbc world headquarters. i'm kendis gibson. it's 6:00 in the east, 3:00 on the west coast. unraveling the mystery. new details in the death of jeffrey epstein today. more questions than answers remain. state fair flurry. democrats descend on iowa. who is up and who is down, next. heightened alarms. threats across the country this weekend in the wake of the two mass shootings last week. we'll bring you the latest. a new warning. russian investigations in spreading racial tensions across amer