In newly released interview, Christopher Tapp shares about the time he came face-to-face with Brian Dripps
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IDAHO FALLS — Christopher Tapp once came face-to-face with Brian Dripps, the man serving time in prison for raping and killing Angie Dodge.
Tapp spent 20 years behind bars after wrongfully confessing to Dodge’s death while Dripps lived his life as a free man. Tapp was released from prison in 2017 and then exonerated in 2019, the same year Dripps was arrested and charged with murder. He is serving 30 years to life in prison.
The twists-and-turns of the Angie Dodge case were featured Friday during a new ‘Dateline NBC’ episode called ‘True Confessions.’ It included Tapp’s last interview with correspondent Keith Morrison taped last fall.
An unaired portion of the interview was included in a follow-up ‘Talking Dateline’ podcast released Wednesday, where Morrison asked Tapp if he ever saw Dripps in-person.
“Honestly, yeah, I did. I ran into him once out here in the real world,” Tapp explained. “I was taking somebody to a medical procedure and he (Dripps) was coming from the same medical building and he was surrounded by two guards. The transportation guards were walking him and he walked in front of my car and I was in the back of the car.”
Tapp continued, “We saw each other. I saw him and he saw me and then he got into the van to go back to the county jail because it was before his conviction. We were able to look each other in the eye.”
Morrison asked if Tapp said anything to Dripps.
“Nope. That was my one opportunity probably in this lifetime to ever say anything to that man and I still have nothing to ever say to him,” Tapp said. “All that hatred, all that frustration, (it) built up inside me for all those years and that was my one opportunity (but) I can’t continue to live in the past, like I’ve said many times before. This one act will never define the person I am or the person I want to become or who I will be.”
Weeks after the interview, on Nov. 5, 2023, Tapp died at the age of 47 in Las Vegas. Police say his death is being investigated as a homicide, but nobody has been charged and no suspects have been publicly named.
“Every twist of this story has produced a whole sheaf of questions to answer for the next chapter,” Morrison said on the podcast.
You can listen to the ‘Talking Dateline’ podcast featuring Morrison, producer Shane Bishop and host Josh Mankiewicz here.