‘Dateline’ interview with Idaho’s Christopher Tapp to air 3 months after his death
The Idaho man best known for a wrongful murder conviction and his efforts to change Idaho law will be making a TV appearance Friday three months after his death.
Christopher Tapp, who spent more than 20 years in prison in the rape and killing of 18-year-old Angie Dodge in Idaho Falls, has had his story chronicled by NBC’s true-crime show “Dateline” many times. The show began filming another episode about him last year, but before it could be wrapped, the 47-year-old Tapp died at a Nevada hospital in November.
Authorities in Las Vegas are now investigating his death as a homicide.
“Dateline” will air a two-hour episode about Tapp’s life and death at 8 p.m. Mountain time Friday. It will include previously aired interview clips with Tapp, as well as a new interview with him filmed in the fall of 2023, according to NBC.
Tapp was wrongfully convicted in 1997 in Dodge’s death and tried multiple times to appeal the conviction. It was later discovered that his DNA did not match DNA at the crime scene. He was released from prison in 2017 and exonerated in 2019, when investigators arrested 54-year-old Brian Dripps, who pleaded guilty and is serving a 20-year-to-life prison sentence.
Tapp, working with the Idaho Innocence Project — which had worked for years to clear Tapp’s name — went on to help get Idaho’s Wrongful Conviction Act passed. It ensures monetary compensation to those punished for crimes they did not commit.
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On Oct. 29, 2023, medical personnel were called to a hotel in the 3000 Block of South Las Vegas Boulevard, where Tapp reportedly suffered head injuries in an accident. The Clark County Coroner’s Office said he died as a result of blunt-force trauma to the head.
The Las Vegas Metro Homicide Section later announced that it considered Tapp’s death “suspicious” and was investigating it as a homicide.
“Through the course of the suspicious death investigation, LVMPD Homicide Detectives have learned Tapp was in an altercation inside a room at a resort before being located and transported to the hospital,” the police department said in a news release.
In a news release, “Dateline” called the newest developments in the case “a chilling twist” that “begins a new chapter in the decades-long saga.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2024 at 4:00 AM.
