chips . reporter: not a bad name to have. he was a good cop. so that s a good thing. reporter: he was in his downtown detroit office where he s member of an elite unit, the detroit fugitive apprehension unit. our job is to locate and arrest the most violent fugitives in the world, in the city, state, out of state, in the world. reporter: one of his supervisors gave him a yellow piece of paper with a few notes and the name, theresa ramirez. he said, hey, ponch, i think this is the case for you. see what you can do. reporter: and what he did could be turned into a major motion picture. this story is just incredible, thomas, with its twists and turns. why did it take so long to get this reopened? reporter: i was actually working in detroit as a reporter when this murder occurred. and it was one of, you know, a dozen homicides probably that weekend, and it got put aside. it wasn t an easy one to solve. they did have a suspect, but he was in mexico.
says i strongly deny these accusations, i m innocent, and he is resigning so he can spent as much time as possible proving his innocence. standing here at rikers island here in new york city, in queens new york, he was granted bail yesterday. could be released at any time. part of those bail conditions, there are a lot of strings attached. he has to pay $1 million cash, he has to pay $5 million insurance bond, plus once he s inside of an apartment, which his wife is in the process of renting in new york city right now, they ll live together, he has to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, video camera surveillance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and also an armed guard to stands outside the door. so right now we re waiting to see when he s going to be released. he s still inside there right now. so we expect that some time today most likely. reporter: most likely today, though you never can be too sure because they have to get that apartment in place so they can tell