god, no, please, no. this can't be real. >> a teenager, home alone, in a night of terror. >> i would just stare at the windows, and try and figure out how scared she must have been. >> on her body, like a signature, a hand print, in blood. >> it was like a crime of passion. there was a lot of anger involved in this. >> but hang on, because that hand print doesn't belong to the man police put in prison. >> the anger just surged through me. >> now, a mother turns detective. >> her words to me i'll never forget were i just want to know what happened to my daughter. >> join in as she hunts for a killer and searches for the

truth. >> i wanted to put my fist through the tv. >> you can follow the clues on the "dateline" chatline and just wait until you learn what she found. >> still brings the hair up on the back of my neck. >> the confession. welcome to "dateline," everyone. i'm lester holt. a police interrogation videotape, it can play a big part in any case. but rarely the way it does in tonight's story. for the mom you're about to meet, already grieving for her dead daughter, the tape revealed something almost as shocking as the murder itself. you're about to see what that was, and when you do, i'd like you to ask yourself, what would you have done about it? here's keith morrison. >> reporter: they keep him in here, deep inside the multiple walls and the armed doors and the rolls and rolls of razor

wire, the confessed stabber, the convicted killer of that sweet young woman, all those years ago. he's lucky to be alive, probably, given the nature of the crime and the appeal from that girl's mother for the death sentence. which makes what that mother tells us about himow v puzzling indeed. >> let him go. it is the only thing his mother has. it is her only child. let him go. >> reporte >> reporter: her name is col dodge and the amazing story she will tell us tonight began on the worst day of her life. it was a thursday, june 13th, 1996, midmorning. 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's been found dead.

>> reporter: just over the phone? >> i remember saying, god, no, please, no. this can't be real. >> reporter: happened it turned out the night before, in the tiny second floor walkup 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 with angie that very week. >> that's what she said to me, you know, mom, i've done something really stupid. >> reporter: did you say to her, what did you do? >> no, i didn't want to pry. >> reporter: what could it have been, that something stupid? could it lead to murder? idaho falls, idaho, big blue heaven above, dazzling white mormon temple below to anchor the town, and signal like a beacon its moral core of american virtue. fine place to raise a family, three dodge boys and one girl named angie, whose birth occasion brother brent remembers, the biggest celebration of all.

>> that was great for my parents to have a baby girl. >> reporter: she learned about independence early on, she grew up busy and strong, and stubborn. >> nobody got in her face because she would take care of you. >> reporter: wasn't a wee petite thing? >> she was 5'11" and she was strong. >> reporter: but, of course, big can be a problem for a girl. as a teenager, she was too tall, too awkward, she struggled. and to make it worse, her parents' marriage fell apart. >> that's when angie went and just made friends with whoever accepted her. >> reporter: among angie's new friends was jessica martinez. >> we both had very poor image because we had weight problems. and wanted to be accepted not for what we looked like, but for the people that we were. >> reporter: jessica had since turned out fine, of course, but back then carol worried a lot about the new friends, didn't

know, like angie, had big plans. >> she wanted to go to college and just be the best person she could be. >> reporter: now suddenly, in this little apartment, angie's life was over. and carol grief stricken and dazed endured a murder investigation. >> we clearly thought that there was some sort of relationship there, because it was a crime of passion. >> reporter: jared fuhriman and ken brown were, back then, detectives in the idaho falls pd. angie's boyfriend was out of town. her other friends had alibis too. so they turned to the physical evidence, like this bloody hand print on angie's stomach. must have been left after she was dead, they figured, when her killer did something that was quite beyond sick, pulled down her pants, pulled up her shirt, left a deposit of semen on her body, his mark, and his dna. >> there is a lost anger, a lot of humiliation involved in this. >> reporter: and frustration for the cops because that dna didn't

match any of their possible suspects. month after month, they chased leads into disappointing dead ends and all the while carol dodge haunted the investigation, practically stalked the detectives, desperate for information, begging them, find the killer. >> i drove to the police department every day that they were open. >> reporter: and then one day, seven months late, dead of winter, january '97, an arrest next door in nevada broke the case wide open. in custody was a young man named benjamin hobbs, one of those less savory friends of angie's. here he is at angie's funeral carrying 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 fuhriman began talking to hobbs' friends. >> why do you think you're down here? >> honestly, i have no idea. >> reporter: one of whom was a

20-year-old named christopher tapp. tapp was no felon, but was an admitted druggee and what do you know, chris tapp had a bit of a history with ex-school resource officer, now detective fuhriman. >> he was in trouble a time or two? >> he was. just trying to help him out. >> i trust you and hopefully you trust me, okay. >> reporter: he trusted fuhriman. but didn't know anything, he said, about angie's murder. >> if i did know anything about this, i would say, but i do not know. that's the honest truth. >> reporter: and having made his statement, christopher tapp went home, in the clear, apparently. couple of days later, the detectives asked him to come downtown again. >> i told him, i said what are you doing this is a murder case. >> reporter: this is tapp's mother, vera, she understaood what he apparently did not, he was possibly talking himself into very big trouble. >> he said, mom, i don't have anything to hide an i want to

them that i don't know anything. >> reporter: but it didn't quite work out that way. before long, chris tapp had written a statement for police saying ben hobbs said he killed her and i laughed it off like he was just telling me a joke. but that was just the beginning. over the 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, but then hobbs killed angie, even held her down, he admitted, when ben stabbed her and finally, he said, eeven stabbed her once himself. the motive? revenge. apparently angeli has been meddling in the marriage. t the police asked him a question about angie. >> was she raped the night she was killed? >> i don't know. that's why i'm asking you.

if she was, my dna will prove my innocence right there. >> reporter: 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 through your heads when the dna results came back and it showed that the attacker was not ben hobbs? >> if you nail it down to one word, frustration. >> reporter: but the detectives decided that didn't mean chris was lying or that the theory of the crime was wrong. it could only mean, they decided, they needed to expand the theory. ben hobbs and chris tapp were guilty, they were sure of it. so that mystery dna must have come from a third man, a third attacker. so they put tapp back in the 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 asked, he couldn't or wouldn't tell them who it was. the 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. detectives had kept her in the dark until now. but one look at christopher tapp in court and she knew she wanted him dead. >> it was finally looking, somebody in the eye, i thought was the devil who had taken my daughter's life. >> reporter: chris tapp was found guilty and set off to state prison for 40 years, which is when carol dodge's odyssey really began. her own investigation filled with danger, surprise, and some very troubling discoveries. . >> when we come back, one

discovery so troubling that angie's mother reached out for help. >> the anger just surged through me. >> her search for the truth would hold some chilling surprises. >> still brings the hair up on the back of my neck. >> when "the confession" continues. well another great thing about all this walking i've been doing is that it's given me time to reflect on some of life's biggest questions. like, if you could save hundreds on car insurance by making one simple call, why wouldn't you make that call? see, the only thing i can think of is that you can't get any... bars. ah, that's better. it's a beautiful view. i wonder if i can see mt. rushmore from here. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

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in the years after angie dodge's murder, the man who confessed to taking part in her killing, christopher tapp, was safely tucked away at state prison. his alleged accomplice, ben hobbs, in prison for a different felony, was never charged with angie's murder. and idaho falls police told angie's mother carol they still couldn't find that third man, the one who left his dna on angie's body. that's when carol became, her word, obsessed.

if the police couldn't track down her daughter's killer, well, then she would. >> the anger just surged through me. and that's when i went to the streets and i literally put 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 the lady said you need to leave before somebody hurts you. >> reporter: that's how the days and weeks passed. >> i had a gun put to my head one night. >> reporter: in a frenzy of new leads, but never panned out, but carol often ending up parked outside the apartment where angie was murdered. >> i would just stare at that house and stare at the windows. and try and figure out how scared she must have been. >> reporter: something else carol couldn't stop doing, reading police reports. practically memorizing them. >> i don't sleep and i get up and i just go, what part of this don't i understand. >> reporter: it didn't make sense. >> none of it made sense.

>> reporter: and in one of those reports, carol found a phrase which the more she read it sounded out of place in the dna world. it was about pubic hairs, which in addition to the semen had been found on angie's body. >> it was written in this lab report, that it is similar or same as the victim. and i said to myself, it is either angie's or it's not angie's. it can't be an either/or. not in today's society. >> reporter: then carol remembered reading an article about an internationally known dna expert who just so happened to live and work right in idaho. a field to be a recognized dna expert. >> it is fun. nobody invited me to talk on television. >> reporter: this is the expert, dr. greg hampikian, a fruit fly geneticist who now spreads his infectious enthusiasm to students at boise state

university. dr. hampikian's work is not all done in the classroom. in fact, his own path changed in 2004 when he was asked to test dna which eventually led to an innocent man being freed from prison in georgia. the doctor and exxoneree wrote a book together, and just like that, the doctor found a new calling. hampikian is now in high demand. in 2011, he was part of the team credited with freeing amanda knox. that american college student in prison for murder in italy. and in his spare time, hampikian is the founder and director of idaho's innocence project. >> it is an unfortunate thing that our name is innocence because honestly, you know, i've worked on, i think, 13 exonerations now, four of the ones in georgia, they found the actual perpetrator. so to those four guys, i'm the guilty project. >> so now, the coincidence you just couldn't make up, the very week carol left a phone message

for dr. hampikian asking for help, idaho's innocence 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 words to me, i'll never forget, were i just want to know what happened to my daughter. and, you know, it still brings the hair up on the back of my neck. >> reporter: curiosity, did it surprise you? >> the knowledge surprised me. she's 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. >> he goes, they're either hers or they're not. >> reporter: just as you thought. >> he said, where are the hairs? i said, i assume they're still in evidence. >> reporter: so she called the idaho falls police department, which found the hairs in an envelope in the evidence room

where they had been stored for all those years. after carol's call, those pubic hairs were sent off to the crime lab where state of the art dna tests could show chris tapp was there at the crime scene or ben hobbs was there at the crime scene or the entirety of the physical evidence was left by one unknown third man. that was a fundamental question, huge, and the answer from the dna left no doubt. >> one person who did this, in terms 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. and that remarkable news could mean only one thing at least according to the idaho innocence project. chris tapp's story was a false confessi confession, he was not there, he was an innocent man. the theory of multiple killers, ridiculous said hampikian. >> to imagine there is this

group of criminals who know about dna and are so careful, what did they do? they planted somebody else's semen and pubic hair and then cleaned up all their own dna. >> reporter: as you might well imagine, that conclusion that chris tapp had to be innocent, that the killer had never 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 is not chris tapp, something's wrong. >> reporter: so what did you do? >> i met with the chief. and i asked for copies of all of the videotapes. >> reporter: those videotapes, the ones in which chris tapp had confessed to taking part in the murder, by most accounts carol knew more about the case than anyone, but the one thing she had never done was watch all the more than 20 hours of the chris tapp interrogation.

now, she did. she watched every minute. when she was done, carol dodge was a changed woman, looking at a brand-new case. coming up -- >> there is times i wanted to put my fist through the tv. >> the tale of the tapes. what exactly had she found? >> we're going to go from there. >> when "dateline" continues. [ female announcer ] so you think your kids are getting enough vegetables?

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more than a dozen years after her daughter's murder, the feet was quaking. new dna tests revealed that none 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, she knew so much more than she knew before, knew, for example, that then detective jared fuhriman who ran the

interviews, had been a school resource officer, well known to the young chris tapp. >> i trust you and hopefully you trust me, okay? >> fuhriman 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 adults and he was a follower. >> reporter: she watched as chris insisted he knew nothing and then she saw detectives as they're trained to do, subtly make tapp an active participant. >> hypothetically, chris, you were there, okay? >> okay. >> hypothetically, chris, how do you think it happened? and 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.

>> got a knife and just started to cut her. >> reporter: but perhaps what troubled carol 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. >> and she lived on a corner. >> reporter: police, carol noticed, kept correcting him. for a guy who had tan pride in a murder, tapp also seemed to not know much about the layout of angie's apartment. >> sometimes it helps to dr s st out. >> reporter: when they asked him to draw it, he couldn't do it. detectives even perhaps inadvertently showed him where the murder occurred. >> here in the bedroom, back here. >> reporter: oh, yes, d there was more. police had always told carol that chris knew things only the

killer would know, the clothes she was wearing. 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. >> that's how you remember it? that's how you don't remember it? if it jogs your memory for you. >> there is times i wanted to pumy fisthrough the tv. >> reporter: and finally, remember that the police theory of the crime after dna didn't match tapp or hobbs was of three people committed 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. >> the name doesn't come to my head. >> i think jeff. >> first name. >> reporter: by the time you had gone through all the tapes, what

did you think about chris tapp, the man you believed all those years -- >> how did they do this to me? how have they managed to keep someone in prison for all these years and it is a possibility it 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 would actively work to free christopher tapp, the only man convicted of the murder. >> i think that chris 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. i mean, she's the leading edge of a group of people in who have come forward and said, you know what, we just want to know what happened. >> reporter: but no matter who was now on his side, chris tapp was face to face with two very uncomfortable truths. one, years of appeals had done

nothing to overturn his conviction and prison sentence, and, two, the detective who put him behind bars had gone on to a much more powerful position in idaho falls. and he was still absolutely certain that chris tapp is as guilty as sin. when we come back, the former detective reveals what makes him so sure of tapp's guilt. >> he took us into the bedroom, and relived that night. and you could see it on his face, he was reliving it. >> when "the confession" continues.

by the time we visited the city of idaho falls in march of 2012, the angie dodge murder case was to some just a piece of city history. to idaho's innocence project and dr. hampikian, it was a miscarriage of justice and a

cause. >> if there is dna, for god's sakes, believe the science. people are not that accurate. the dna is very precise. >> reporter: and now, 15 years after the murder of her daughter, angie's own mother, carol dodge, had done what was 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 years since the murder, finding angie's killer was carol's reason for living. through three heart attacks, the death of an estranged husband, off and on battles with the idaho falls police, and now she was going to have to fight that power in a whole new way. because -- remember jared fuhriman, the detective who befriended chris tapp in a previous position as school resource officer? the fellow who got that confession has gone on to become the mayor of the town.

>> true. >> reporter: does that have anything to do with it as far as you can tell? >> people have got to protect their story without looking any deeper and saying, you know, is this really accurate? >> reporter: so, the idaho falls police taking a false confession, but the wrong man in prison and failed to find the real killer? no. just not true said the former detective now mayor jared fuhriman. how does he know? it was fuhriman who took tapp to visit the crime scene, during some of those many interviews all those years ago. >> let me tell you, they weren't in the room with me when he took us up the stairs, took us into the bedroom, and relived that night. and 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 of that homicide itself. >> reporter: you can't -- what is it, 25% of all dna resolved cases where somebody is released from prison turns out there was a false confession. people do confess to things they didn't do. >> we know that, but when people confess to crimes that they don't do, they don't know the minute details of that case. and chris knew and knows the minute details of that case. >> reporter: he, of course, claims he knows them because he was fed them. >> we would politely disagree with that. >> reporter: is it possible at least there was some suggestion involved in these things before he said them. >> that he was coerced? coerced. that he heard in the questions he was being asked some hint of what the answer might be. hypotheticals as it were, hypothetically -- >> there is a possibility the world could end in 2012 too. for us to sit and say there is no possibility anything could

have happened, we can't say things like that. we can say that we have reviewed those tapes over and over. we had a jury who reviewed those tapes. >> reporter: two guys who interviewed this person over and over again and found that in the first interview, the second interview, the third ind view, the fourth interview, the fifth interview, he lied like a sidewalk, then you finally get to the seventh interview and that's the gospel truth. >> no, absolutely not. during each of the interviews he was bringing out information that he absolutely knew was not fed to, the color of clothes she was wearing, the position of the clothes, how many times she was stabbed, 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. >> do you know what she had on? >> no. >> do you. do you remember she was clothed, not clothed? >> no. >> 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, in a guessing kind of way, know what angie was wearing. >> comfy clothes, t-shirt, sweats. >> reporter: though he's wrong about 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. >> like half on, one leg. >> reporter: also, said the detective, chris talked about ben hobbs hitting angie behind the ear. >> 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 lead, chris tapp was involved in the attack and an unknown third man left the dna in the form of semen. three attackers. the identity of the third still

a secret, unrevealed by either of the other two all those years later. and about the fact that carol dodge now disagrees with their theory and is now supporting chris tapp, the only man in prison for the murder -- what is it like to know that carol is now actively campaigning for his release, believes an innocent man. >> i think that's part of the process in some respects. her heart has been broken. >> reporter: she's convinced you got the wrong guy. >> when i heard that, i was genuinely surprised. >> it has been a roller coaster ride for 16 years for her. she's looking for closure. tomorrow or the next day, chris could be guilty in her mind again. >> reporter: so, perhaps now would be a good time to talk to the man in the middle of all this. the serial confessor, christopher tapp. coming up -- >> i didn't kill nobody. >> so why would he confess? tackling the biggest mystery of all when "dateline" continues. some places i go really aggravate my allergies.

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there comes a time in every tale to meet the man at the center of the story, and here he is, christopher tapp. no longer the aimless pot head you saw in the videotapes in 1997. now a man of 36, who has 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 innocent, right? >> if you look at the whole entire case, the dna, none of it points to me. >> reporter: on that point, there is little dispute, of

course. but how did chris tapp get here? that's a familiar story to many families, the sweet little boy shown in all these pictures of a typical childhood, carefully kept by his mom vera, started smoking marijuana at 13. 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 with all the kids his mom warned him about and that's how his name came up after the murder of angie dodge, when police were scouring the city for suspects who might match the dna left behind after the murder. so too 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: didn't connect it with the angie thing at all. >> i thought i was going in for drugs. >> reporter: as you've seen over the course of several weeks, chris tapp soon 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 was your mother during all of this? >> frantic. i was honest with her, i said i had nothing to do with this, mom. i tried to explain to her. i didn't really confess, it took days to get to a story where i actually made a confession. >> reporter: well, of course, one of the difficulties was your story kept changing. >> very much it did. >> reporter: you went from saying i don't know anything about this, to then saying, well, maybe ben had something to do with it. to then, well, maybe there is a third guy involved.

to, wait a minute, i was there. and oh, yeah, and i cut her. where did that come from? >> trying to give them what they wanted to hear, just to appease them. >> reporter: wait a minute, why would you say you cut her in. >> during that time, mr. fuhriman, he said hypothetically, even if you did cut her, it still ain't going to matter, we'll get you another deal, we'll help you, but you need to help us. >> reporter: and indeed, here it is on tape, with then detective, now mayor jared fuhriman in charge of the interview. >> hypothetically if chris tapp was holding on to angie, and she was being cut, and if some ear other stuff was going on or if chris tapp took part in the knife in any way shape or form of cutting her. >> but i didn't. >> would you listen? >> i'm sorry. >> hypothetically, if you took part in any of that, that's okay. because you're still here, you're still showing some good faith that you want to cooperate

and the prosecutor will reconsider another possible -- exactly. you. >> reporter: you believe that story? >> hook, line and sinker. >> reporter: tell me what is going on inside 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, well, if he was there, if he did do it, if he held a knife, it is okay, we'll help you. like an idiot, i believed them. >> reporter: then they charged you with murder? >> yeah. >> reporter: now, of course, chris tapp is fighting to clear his name, with the support not only of 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 is an amazing feeling. i appreciate her finally understand i

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? >> but this confession goes, the state has almost no evidence. >> a high stakes hearing with carol dodge front and center. and coming up next friday on "dateline" -- secrets in a small town. >> it was awful realizing your worst nightmare has come true. >> a mother vanished, a family is anguished, and a case of murder becomes a southern gothic mystery. >> who would ever imagine you would have a mother -- >> then a small town story led to a very big break.

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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 first time since his trial, a hearing on evidence was about to be held before a judge. as chris tapp headed to the courtroom, he and his supporters finally had 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 cord

decided tapp 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. what is the best result for this? new trial or is it possible to have an exoneration? >> with this confession goes, the state has almost no evidence. >> i think they have to dismiss the case. >> reporter: mistathe stakes co 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 got a lot at stake. if chris tapp walks free, then what? then it is who is the killer? >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: that's funny, chris lawyers argued when it was their turn, how could a 20-year-old who had been arrested twice and watched as the door was barred during some of his interviews, how could that young man who had been questioned on and off for nearly a month, who spent more than a week at that time actually locked up in jail, who had 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. >> reporter: 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, in fact, that you lied, on any number of occasions? and if you lied before, how can we believe you now? >> well, 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. >> reporter: testimony whwhen t over it was up to the judge. would he order a new trial for chris tapp or send him back to prison, maybe for good? >> reporter: 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. >> the truth will set me free some day. >> reporter: and you're pretty convinced of that? >> as the years go on, yeah. >> reporter: tapp's lawyers have vowed to continue that fight, as long as they have to, to file new appeals, and for the first time since the murder, the two mothers at the center of the case can agree. >> come home every day and you

think, i had a son. sooner or later, something's got to break. >> let him go. it is the only thing his mother has. it is her only child. let him enjoy his mother. let his mother enjoy him. there's just two of them. that's all they have. >> reporter: but the detectives who made the case against christopher tapp say they are still certain. well, the search continues for that third man, the dna donor, tapp and ben hobbs are killers as well, they are sure of it. so as you sit here today, are you convinced that chris tapp is one of the people that you need to have in prison? >> absolutely. >> reporter: as for ben hobbs, he's still in prison in nevada. and still denies any involvement in angie's murder. he declined "dateline's" request for an interview. but dr. greg hampikian of the idaho innocence project, the answer still lies not on 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 the story can remain a secret that many years if three people were involved? >> secrets can be kept, but science reveals those secrets. somebody went in and committed a typical violent rape/murder and left typical evidence. there is no other person there by dna. where is he? >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: and neither did she, carol admits. when she sat 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." we'll be back again next friday at 10:00, 9:00 central. and i'll see you tomorrow on "today." i'm lester holt. for all of us at nbc news, good night. [captioning made possible by constellation energy group] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> live, local, latebreaking. >> good evening, everyone. we begin tonight with breaking news out of south baltimore. news out of south baltimore.