- [Narrator] What is up, EWU Crew?
Today we are exploring three more cold cases
that have already been solved
at the beginning of 2021. (gentle suspenseful music)
Let's get into it.
The first case we're taking a look at is a bit unusual,
as due to strange circumstances,
it wasn't declared a cold case
until much later than may be expected.
18-year-old Angie Dodge was living in Idaho falls, Idaho,
when she didn't show up for work on June 13th, 1996.
Growing worried, two of her colleagues
went to her apartment hoping to find her,
but upon arrival, they were horrified
to discover Angie's body in her bedroom with her throat cut.
Investigators quickly determined that she had been killed
in the early hours of that morning, and assaulted.
From the DNA evidence they collected on her body,
they assume that there had only been one assailant
who attacked and killed Angie.
The police ran the DNA sample that they had collected,
but it didn't match anyone in their system.
Though it took months to find a suspect, by January, 1997,
19-year-old Christopher Tapp was named
as the case's prime suspect.
However, the DNA evidence didn't match Tapp,
and it seemed to point to someone else being Angie's killer.
And yet the police weren't deterred.
Even without physical evidence, they still believed
that Tapp had to be involved in Angie's death.
The explanation was that multiple people had been there
when she died, and Tapp was one of them,
even though the DNA said otherwise.
During intense interrogations,
Tapp eventually confessed to Angie's murder,
and even gave the names of his alleged accomplices,
though the DNA didn't match any of the people he named.
Despite this issue, the case was taken to trial.
In 1998, the jury found Tapp guilty,
and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison
for Angie's murder and assault.
It appeared that Angie's murder had been swiftly solved
and her killer caught, but that wasn't the case at all.
Tapp repeatedly appealed his sentence,
proclaiming his innocence.
And though he was consistently denied,
he eventually found an unlikely supporter,
Angie's mother, Carol Dodge.
Though she had previously tried
to have him receive the death penalty
for her daughter's murder,
Carol no longer believed that Tapp was guilty,
and she began to fight to have him released.
After over a decade in prison, the Idaho Innocence Project
became involved in Tapp's case.
Still, it took many long years
to have Tapp's guilt reevaluated.
He ended up spending 20 years in prison
before it was revealed
that Tapp's confession had been coerced.
And that during the process,
he had been threatened by the police.
It is reported that Tapp's interrogation
had lasted nearly 30 hours.
He later explained the frustrating ordeal saying,
"It was a forced and false confession.
I was lied to, I was tricked. I was manipulated.
I believed in my heart of hearts
that I was doing the right thing with the police."
As he had been wrongly convicted,
Tapp was finally released in 2017.
Investigators then reopened Angie's case,
designating it a cold case, as many of their only leads
had centered around Tapp as her killer.
They eventually brought in Parabon NanoLabs
to help identify the person
who had actually left the DNA sample on Angie.
It wasn't until May 6th, 2019,
that the name of Angie's real killer was found,
Brian Dripps.
Tapp was officially exonerated that year,
as he had been wrongly accused
and locked in prison for 20 years
for a crime he didn't commit.
Tapp is currently seeking a wrongful conviction lawsuit
with a federal jury.
He has lamented, "I lost the opportunity to raise a family,
pursue a career, and to share in
the most basic freedoms that we all live for."
Even still, he explained in an interview
his utmost admiration for Carol's strength in this case,
as a mother who was able
to set aside her own anger and grief,
to go back and do the research
that would lead to his justice.
Tapp spoke, "In the scheme of life, what's 20 years?
She lost her daughter. She lost a part of her."
With real evidence against Dripps,
investigators looked into his past and discovered
that he had lived across the street from Angie
at the time of her death.
On May 10th, police went
to Dripps' new address in Caldwell, Idaho,
where they saw him smoking outside his house.
When he flicked a cigarette butt into the road,
a detective ran across the street to collect it.
The sample was then taken
and compared to the DNA sample found on Angie.
It came back as a match.
Though he was arrested on May 15th, 2019,
it wasn't until much later that he confessed to the crime.
On February 9th, 2021, after over 20 years free,
and another man serving two decades in prison
for his crimes, Dripps pled guilty
to the first-degree murder and assault charge.
While in court, he admitted
that he had intended to assault Angie,
but that he had no memory of killing her, saying, quote,
"I didn't mean to murder her."
Though he never admitted to killing Angie,
he also never denied it.
However, Dripps did admit
that he had been drinking the night of Angie's death,
and that he had been high on cocaine.
As part of a plea, Dripps has agreed
to a fixed term of 20 years to life in prison,
and he will be sentenced on April 27th, 2021.
Angie's family has expressed great relief
at the conclusion of her case
and happiness to see that the right man is finally in jail.
Our next case took place in 2007,
when Joanne Howell was discovered
at her Hughesdale apartment in Victoria, Australia.
51-year-old Joanne was a talented singer
with a beautiful voice,
who had performed on the Australian music show "Countdown"
in the 1970s.
Before her death, she had been working
as a data entry operator at a security company.
On April 21st, 2007, around 11:20 pm,
Joanne was found by her boyfriend,
after being attacked in her apartment.
She had been beaten and strangled.
Her boyfriend, Paul Charlton,
called emergency services immediately upon finding her.
At the time, Joanne was believed to still be alive
when she was discovered,
and so the paramedics were called to save her.
However, it was sadly reported
that she died at the crime scene,
likely before the paramedics even arrived.
The police believe
that Joanne had known the person who attacked her,
as she had likely let them into her home.
Knowing this piece of information,
the first suspect in the case was Joanne's boyfriend,
Charlton, who described himself as a pub karaoke king,
as he was a host for karaoke events.
Charlton was arrested at the scene of Joanne's death.
After extensive interviews and continual denial,
he was later released by police,
but not entirely cleared of suspicion.
Joanne's neighbors came forward to share
that they had heard the couple fighting throughout the day,
and that they recalled a loud noise around 9:00 pm,
as though there had been a fight,
or someone had knocked something over.
After more interviews, Charlton admitted
that Joanne had implied that their relationship was over,
as she was moving away to Perth in four weeks
and that he had to move out.
But Charlton maintained that he had left the apartment
at 9:30 to take the dog for a walk,
and he had returned at 11:19 to find Joanne attacked
by an unknown assailant who had broken in and killed her.
Yet, there was no sign of a struggle at the scene
and nothing was stolen from Joanne's apartment,
nor was she assaulted,
casting skepticism on Charlton's statements.
Even though the police publicly stated
that Charlton was the main person of interest,
they didn't have enough proof ever to charge him.
They believe that Joanne had been attacked
in a two and a half hour window, between 8:30 to 11:19 pm,
something which would become important later on.
Following an extensive investigation,
no one was ever arrested for Joanne's murder,
and her case fell into the often doomed category
of a cold case. (somber music)
In 2012, Joanne's case saw a ray of hope
with the coroner claiming that evidence seemed to point
to Charlton being connected to her death.
And though the investigators stated
that they had uncovered a motive for the murder,
they didn't reveal anything as it hadn't yet been confirmed.
It had appeared that Joanne's case
was close to being solved,
but nothing more came of the revelations.
By 2018, Joanne's family made an appeal
to have the information released
that the police had teased in 2012,
and also demanded that Charlton be charged for her death.
But still, police didn't have enough evidence.
In the 13 years after Joanne's death,
the police and her community never forgot about her.
In 2020, Joanne's case was given a new inquiry.
The police created a digital composite image of the man
that was seen by witnesses acting suspiciously
near her apartment, around the time that she died.
The hope was that someone would recognize the picture
and come forward.
Investigators also managed
to drastically narrow down the window that she was attacked,
to the exact space between 9:00 pm and 9:15.
It was this new timeframe for Joanne's death
that helped to eventually crack her case,
as the small window in which she was attacked
cast doubt on some of the testimonies given
during the investigation.
Specifically, Charlton's claims that Joanne was fine
when he had left the apartment at 9:30 to walk the dog,
and that she had been attacked sometime after that,
before he returned. (somber music)
In early January, 2021, Charlton, now aged 66,
was arrested and re-interviewed
with the new evidence in mind.
Since Joanne had been strangled
before Charlton left to walk the dog,
it became glaringly clear to investigators
that he had been the one to attack her.
On January 6th,
he was officially charged with Joanne's murder.
He is set to be in court in June of 2021.
Joanne's sister, Lisa,
recently commented on the situation, saying,
"We talk about it on any birthday, Christmas,
on special occasions, Jo's birthday, the day it happened.
We get together and talk about it as a family,
so we have been waiting for that phone call to happen
for so long that it's surreal.
We are so grateful as a family."
The last case we have for you today
was solved untraditionally,
as it began with the suspect being caught
before all the crimes were known.
On April 15th, 2000,
the body of Chrishana Logan was discovered in Toledo, Ohio.
The 19-year-old was found strangled in her apartment.
An autopsy revealed
that she had been assaulted before she died.
DNA samples were taken from the scene,
but they weren't found to match anyone known in the system,
nor did they match with Chrishana's boyfriend,
who had initially been arrested and charged with the murder.
But surprisingly, the sample did match two other cases.
The same DNA was found in the case of an abduction
and assault of a 17-year-old,
who had been taken from a parking lot
before being released in August, 2000.
As well as the abduction and assault of a 13-year-old girl
taken from a bus stop in October, 2000.
Even though the police knew that the same perpetrator
was guilty of at least three crimes, they had no suspects.
Chrishana's boyfriend had the charges against him dismissed
when the DNA wasn't a match.
And so they wouldn't have a suspect for a few decades,
as all three cases went cold.
Because the mysterious unknown suspect
had attacked his victims so frequently,
the police believed that he would strike again.
But when no other cases were uncovered, they assumed
that he might have moved away from the area or died.
It wasn't until two decades later
that they would hear again from the perpetrator.
In November, 2020, 54-year-old Kenneth M. Marshall
was arrested in Hammond, Indiana,
for an incident of criminal confinement
and serious bodily injury.
During his arrest, the Lake County Sheriff's Department
took a DNA sample from Marshall
as part of the standard procedure.
This sample was then entered into a national DNA database.
Within months of Marshall's DNA being taken,
the state of Ohio's Bureau Criminal Investigation Laboratory
discovered that he matched one of their unsolved cases.
After looking deeper, they realized that he matched three.
On January 4th, 2021, the Ohio police
were able to link him to Chrishana's murder,
and the two other assaults.
After two decades, the series of crimes targeting women
in Toledo, Ohio, during 2000, were finally solved.
It hasn't yet been ruled out
that Marshall may have committed other attacks
in the years between his arrest.
On the 15th, Marshall was officially charged
with aggravated murder and felonious assault.
He will also be charged with the specification
of being a repeat violent offender.
He was extradited back to Ohio and arraigned
with his bail set at $1.3 million.
These three cases are just the beginning of a year
that is expected to see even more cold cases finally solved.