>> they were just a young couple going out for a night on the town and they're killed for no reason. >> it was a brutal murder and for his entire life he lived with the shame of believing his father was the killer. >> we couldn't walk out of the house without someone in our face. >> your dad is a murderer. >> he had no reason to doubt it. after all, it was his mother who turned him in. >> he had blood all over him. >> hidden in the shadows of a family's shame there were secrets and slowly they started to emerge. >> i became very disturbed. >> i'm finding myself thinking there's something really wrong here. >> he wasn't the only one who thought so. >> he said there's no easy way

to tell you this. >> three lives were about to change forever. >> what about your mother? >> exactly. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." here's keith morrison with secrets in the desert. >> what a strange place is the past. it doesn't exist anymore beyond where it has put us and the fading memories. and yet how that poisoned hand can reach up through the dark and torture basements of half forgotten years. >> i have heard a lot of stories from both sides. >> this is ron. if anyone should know about this particular past, it is he and yet how could he know who betrayed his trust, his father, his mother, which one? >> i don't know what's true and what's not true. i don't know who told who what. >> neither did katie when the young lawyer at the arizona

justice project opened the musty file and looked inside. >> we don't want to close this case because it's always haunted us. >> of course it has. even though it happened long before she was born. how long? 50 years. phoenix. it wasn't the sprawling very modern city we know today. back then lots of open desert still dirt paths dotted with cactus framed by red mountain peaks. and of course there were those outrageous tail fins. one evening in the warm spring of 1962, a young phoenix couple took a ride out to the desert. >> this was two young people who were engaged to be married. >> tim and joyce freshly scrubbed just 20 years old met at the phone company. that's where they worked. >> these two people were upstanding citizens. they both had jobs.

they both came from very good families. >> yes. and then it was may 23rd. tim and joyce had dinner with her parents and drove off in the '59 chevy just about like this one. they stopped for a milkshake and then tim veered off the road to lover's lane to do what kids do at those places. >> a young couple going out for the night on the town and to be with one another. >> it was early the next morning when a school bus passed by and the kids yelled at the bus driver to stop. here just off the dirt road was the '59 impala and lying in the dust nearby were tim and joyce, both dead. >> the boy's body was found closer to the vehicle and the female was found a little bit farther away like she had tried to escape. >> both shot? >> both shot twice in the head. >> to say it was shocking in the

phoenix of '62 was an understatement. this sort of thing just didn't happen. >> it was a huge story. they're killed for no reason. it was a senseless murder. >> in fact, this looked almost like an execution except as the sheriff's officers discovered, whoever did it wasn't careful. there was evidence. plenty of it. >> there were four shell casings found at the crime scene. there was a wallet found close to the body of timothy. there was nothing stolen from the wallet as far as we know. there was human hair found at the crime scene. and the human hair was collected and it was impounded. >> the captain in charge took pictures of the crime scene and then had the impala towed downtown. >> there was a lot of scuttlebutt going on in the sheriff's office that we had a major case and that was --

everybody was wondering what's happening. >> jerry is now a renowned nature photographer but 50 years ago he was a sheriff's deputy. a fingerprint specialist. he took charge of the impala. >> i began to examine the vehicle starting at the driver's door. my procedure was to first dust the print and if it looked like it was anywhere near usable, i would photograph it right where it is. >> he photographer photographed. his job was to match those with those who had most likely touched the car. >> a young couple brutally murdered and you're holding the hands of these individuals to obtain fingerprints. that in itself was a delable in my mind.

>> three friningerprints on ther could not be identified. they were sent off to the fbi for analysis. he held onto a fourth print. print number one taken from the chrome strip on the driver's door. >> it was a confusing image. it looked like a palm print and yet it could have been an overlay of a fingerprint on a palm print. it was not sent to the fbi because it would just be almost a waste of time because they didn't keep palm prints as such on file. >> the three fingerprints couldn't be matched to anything in the fbi files. the shell casings weren't much help either. dozens of guns were confiscated and test fired but none of them matched the .45 caliber casings found at the scene. >> they had hundreds of leads and they pursued hundreds of leads. there were just tons of people calling in with information that they thought was important. >> but nothing came of any of

it. yet even as the investigation stalled, the public's appetite for news about the double murder nobody could figure out was insatiable. >> nobody could make sense of it. >> was there any sign the woman had been sexually assaulted or anything? >> no. no signs of sexual assault. that was not a motive. >> weird. it's as if somebody had just thrill killed them or something? >> that's what it seemed like. >> tim and joyce were buried together and felt they would have wanted it that way and then the headlines went away. attention wandered elsewhere. tail fins shrank and then vanished and years later not far away even a small boy named ron could tell that a certain marriage had gone sour as marriages will but this one, this one took justice in its poisonous grip until now. >> what does a bad marriage have

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about her age were gunned down in the desert and even now she told us she remembers it like it was yesterday because of the odd coincidence. that was the very same night or so she remembers that her bill encountered some trouble of his own while driving through another part of town. >> he came in the house and he had blood all over him. he told me that there was some kids that were stopped on the side of the road with their car broken down so he had stopped to help them and they jumped him. >> in those days bill worked at his dad's gas station. he remembers it as a different night though around the time of the murders. it was after all a long time ago. he was checking under the hood of the kids' car, he said, when things turned ugly. >> just caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. i turned around and second kid had a tire iron. well, i just one reaction.

bam. like that. left hand i caught him right there. and then i made for my truck and got the hell out of there. >> bill didn't report the incident to the police and carol kept the strange coincidence to herself but from that moment the night of the scuffle and the desert murders were somehow linked together. you're pretty sure it was that night. >> yeah. >> not maybe they were a week apart? >> like i say the next day i remember reading it in the paper. >> detectives worked the mckillop/sterrenberg murder for months. it stayed cold for years. bill and carol raised three boys. ron, the youngest, remembers how involved his dad was. >> i can remember going out to the lake on the boat. i remember going out to the desert. he was my coach when i was

racing bicycles. it was a good time. >> good times for ron. for carol, not so much. the young mother of three was feeling unfulfilled, stifled by her husband. what's your way of telling that story? >> i grew up. simple as that. he controlled me. he tried everything to control me. >> here she was married for a decade almost 30 years old. she wanted more out of life and so she got a job as a clerk working the night shift at the sheriff's department. she took classes on police procedures including one on fingerprinting hoping she might become a deputy herself one day. she started hanging out after hours with some officers shooting pool having a few beers. >> things just began to be too obvious. >> too obvious how? what do you mean? was she seeing other guys? >> yeah. i didn't do anything about that

until i came home one time and found one of them in the house. and he was a member of the police department. >> bill's story is the final nail in the marriage was when he came home and found one of those police officers at home with you in the house and he said get out. >> what? that never happened. that's a new one. that never happened. >> accusations, denial, it was a classic and very angry he said/she said. by 1974, they were finished. carol left. bill kept the house and the boys. but if life had been a soap opera in the macumber house, the climax was about to come when bill got a late-night phone call. >> i said hello. there was nobody on the other end and a bullet comes flying through the rear window. i grab a gun off the top of the

hutch and ran out the back door through the storage room and i heard someone say oh no. i know sure as i know my own name that was carol in the alley. >> i can remember dad bursting into our bedroom and grabbing us all out of bed and throwing us in the bathtub and saying do not move until i come back and get you. no clue what had happened. >> must have been terrified. >> no clue what was going on. i can remember that bullet hole when i saw it the next morning. >> bill called the police who paid a visit to carol. not as a colleague but as a suspect. >> i swear to you the first words out of my mouth were bull [ bleep ]. he did it himself. no doubt at all. >> they checked carol gun and it didn't match the bullet found in bill's kitchen and out of the blue she told the detectives an incredible story. a few well chosen words and suddenly that long dormant case

of the killing on lover's lane woke up. >> i said by the way you might be interested in the fact that he told me he killed the two kids out in the desert 12 years ago. >> it was as you might well imagine quite the bombshell. 12 years after that famous and unsolved murder, carol macumber told police that bill confessed that he did it himself. they gave her a lie detector test in an effort to confirm her credibility. she passed. then the detectives called bill in for a talk. the accuser now the accused. they grilled him for hours and when they confronted him with carol's statement, said the officers, he finally broke down and admitted it. admitted telling carol that he killed the two kids in the desert. things moved quickly after that. they took your fingerprints. >> and palm print. >> they took your palm print also and said the palm print

matched. >> they said they match. >> a palm print that matched the one found on joyce sterrenberg's impala and what sounded like a confession. a famous cold case had suddenly turned red hot. >> i remember getting out of the car and someone came out of the door and said carol get the kids out of here. the prints match. >> and thus began for ron macumber a very long journey and a story far too confusing for a mind so very young. they arrested his 38-year-old dad, the center of his life, and they charged him with murder. >> coming up, bill macumber had some incredible charges of his own to make against the woman who accused him of murder. >> it was very easy to tell when my wife was lying. her lips moved. >> that's insane. but then look at the source. >> when "dateline" continues.

the '60s were a memory and the '70s halfway through when bill macumber went on trial for

the lovers lane murder of tim mckillop and joyce sterrenberg. his son, ron, didn't fully understand what was going on but couldn't avoid it either. >> i remember reporters being camped out in our front yard. we couldn't walk out of the house without someone in our face and questions and having to go out the back door and out the alley to get to school. >> your dad is a murderer. >> yeah. >> the cold blooded shooting that made headlines in 1962 was big news again. >> he read up on the state's case and found hard evidence very compelling. >> had weapon and bullets. >> fbi ballistics testing matched bill macumber's gun to the .45 caliber shell casings found at the scene. the shell casings were the primary piece of evidence? >> i would think so, yes.

>> but bill's defense attorney was determined to tell a very different story and came out swinging with a stunning never before seen piece of evidence. a statement from a then 17 year old name linda primrose. she said she actually saw the murders happen with her own eyes. >> linda told the police that she was there. she told the police how they were killed. >> linda primrose took police to the crime scene and gave them a detailed account of what happened including details which had not been made public. it matched what the police found? >> it matched what the police found. >> the primrose statement named the killer a crazed and violent 5'8" hispanic man she remembered as ernie salisar. a far description from bill macumber but when she took the stand at the trial, linda

primrose retracted her original statement and said it was nothing but lies. >> she told the jury she remembered making those statements in 1962 but that she lied. those were false statements. >> the defense was stunned but they came back with another bombshell that now became the heart of their case. they put bill on the stand. he insisted he never confessed to the crime and claimed that his ex-wife, who worked in the sheriff's office at the time of his arrest, tampered with the evidence. >> she had access to all of the evidence. door was unlocked. shell casings, fingerprints. >> back in 1976, carol took the stand and denied the allegation. >> that's insane. but then look at the source. >> when jerry, the meticulous fingerprint technician took the stand, he agreed. >> my opinion is that my

evidence, lift number one, as i testified to it in superior court on two occasions had not been tampered with. >> and carol had plenty of motive, said bill. even though the judge wouldn't let the jury hear it, bill said it explained everything. carol, he said, wasn't just playing some divorce revenge game. no. by accusing him, she got her colleagues in the sheriff's office to stop pursuing her. the one thing remember carol was taken in for questioning about the shooting incident at bill's house. there was something else too. >> just prior to my arrest, carol was brought in to the sheriff's department for interrogation. >> bill claimed carol had been providing sexual favors to officers and recording those intimate moments. it was and remains a breathtaking accusation, one carol denies.

were you having affairs with police officers? >> no. >> were you making audio recordings or any kind of recordings? >> no, absolutely not. that's so ridiculous it's beyond belief. >> ridiculous, well, what she did was ridiculous said bill but not beyond belief. carol was in trouble back then, he claimed. and by bringing her colleagues a prize, a charge in that famous murder case, she made her troubles go away. >> it was very easy to tell when my wife was lying, keith. her lips moved. >> it's typical bill. it's all big conspiracy theory. >> who to believe, bill or carol? after deliberating for three days, the jury found bill macumber guilty on two counts of murder. he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms to ensure he would never see the outside of a prison again. young ron, then nine, was suddenly a fatherless child.

>> he had been convicted, yeah. my father is a murderer. i want nothing to do with him. >> but one question lingered. why? why someone like bill macumber, always an upstanding guy. not so much as a parking ticket on his record. was a secret evil guy underneath the good guy exterior? >> i don't know. hard working decent guy who had a streak where he liked to kill people. >> he wouldn't be the first and i am afraid to say not to be the last. >> and ron macumber was fine with the idea that he would never see his father again. >> it's over. probably never going see him again or ever talk to him again. >> bill macumber failed to convince a jury and even his own son that he was innocent and a good man but he was determined to keep trying. even if it took a lifetime. >> coming up, bill macumber's

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>> the famous case of the murder on lovers lane was finally closed. justice done or so it seemed. it was 1976. carol took the kids to live in colorado where she found work as a sheriff's deputy. to help erase bill from their lives, they started using carol's maiden name. >> she did her best to take care of us. >> were you all pretty close? >> yes. very close. >> ron who was nine back then

lived in the shadow of his father's crime. >> i was ashamed. i didn't want anyone to know who my father was. new kid out of state didn't know anybody. we even told people that he didn't live with us or he was dead. >> as years went by, hard questions about his father still cluttered his mind. >> there were a few times i thought about writing my father and never got the guts to do it. >> what would you have written to him? what would you have said? >> i don't know. one of the first questions would be why did you do this to us? >> and bill macumber wasn't going anywhere. >> i think i pretty much gave up. >> did you get to see your boys? >> i saw them one time. >> he sent dozens of letters to his sons, he said, but -- >> the kids never got them. they never heard from me as far as they knew. >> and so bill slowly resigned himself to a life behind bars. the days piled up and turned into years. during those years, a funny

thing happened. bill became a model inmate so much so that other prisoners looked up to him. they gave him a nickname. pops. and bill began to see in the midst of his trouble, opportunity, like forming a chapter of the junior chamber of commerce in prison. >> in prison? who would have thought? >> yeah. >> that's a young men's business group. >> that's right. by the end of the first year we had 65 members out of a population of 155. >> soon bill was organizing and leading the other prisoners. he set up prison classes for inmates and taught them english, history, business skills, opened a snack bar for visitors. the profits went to charities like make-a-wish foundation and the special olympics. >> we ended up that year the most awarded chapter in the state. civilian and prison. >> bill didn't stop at just

that. next, he transformed the annual prison rodeo. once small and little known into a renowned event that traveled the state and raised in its first year alone more than $70,000 for charity. >> i went to everybody in the state of arizona. >> you heard him correctly. he was given permission time and again to leave the prison. sometimes for days. sometimes without an escort. i heard that you traveled outside of prison 190 times. >> 232 times. the most traveled inmate in the history of the prison system here. >> why didn't you run? >> never even entered my mind. your word was your bond. >> and he wrote endlessly. 24 novels. a book of poetry. the news of his achievements trickled down to ron. >> my grandmother sent an article up when he was doing the jaycees. >> was this the man his mother

told him was nothing but evil? >> i started getting interested in my father's case. i just wanted to know more. who he had killed, why? i kept looking into it and reading articles. there were things that were starting to bother me just a little bit. one of my thoughts was how stupid are you to hold onto a weapon for 12 years if you killed somebody? so it started brewing and brewing and brewing. >> and he wasn't the only person whose interest was piqued about the story about bill macumber. when larry hammond, one of arizona's best known defense attorneys stopped by the prison one day, the warden insisted he meet bill. >> he said i think one of the people you need to talk to is pops. he was clearly a leader in that prison. he was the person who young inmates who wanted to do right relied on. >> and so many months later when hammond discovered some very disturbing things about the case, he decided to investigate

and word got to ron now in his 30s and husband and father himself and his own interests already brewing started to really percolate. >> if it's an open and shut case, why is this guy who is a big name in arizona looking at this case. i just finally said enough. i called larry hammond late june of 2002. i said there is no easy way to tell you this. we believe your father is innocent. we believe your mother framed him. >> coming up, a father and son reunion. >> it came certified and probably took me two hours to open. first words were son, i love you. your father is not a murderer. >> and the prison gates swing open only to slam shut again. when "dateline" continues. [ female announcer ] what does the anti-aging power of olay total effects

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they work fast on heartburn and taste awesome. these are good. told ya! i'm feeling better already. [ male announcer ] new alka seltzer fruits chews. enjoy the relief! >> ron macumber's world was upside down. how could this be? the father he believed was a double murderer is actually innocent. >> i'm in shock. flat out in shock. >> but that's exactly what famed arizona defense attorney larry hammond believed so he assembled a team at his arizona justice

project to look into it and they didn't have to look very far. their first big break was a phone call from a judge wanting to talk about the decades old case. he had never forgotten? >> not for a second. >> this is that judge now retired. his name is tom o'toole. the story he had to tell was explosive. in 1967, o'toole was assigned to protect a criminal named ernie. and then ernie told o'toole but a double murder he committed back in 1962. >> he went into enough detail that there was no doubt in my mind that those were the mckillop/sterrenberg murders.

when you heard him say that in 1967, did you think, wow, that's it? solved the case? >> because the attorney/client privilege you can't disclose it to anybody. >> o'toole was trapped unable to say a word to law enforcement. by the time bill macumber went to trial seven years later, ernie was dead and killed in a prison fight. by then he confessed again and again to at least six different people so o'toole came forward and asked to tell the story in court but the trial judge ruled that ernie's confession was unreliable. o'toole wasn't allowed to testify. which meant the jury in bill's trial did not hear one word about ernie. that troubled katie from the moment she joined the justice project team. >> when i started looking into the case for the first time, i became very disturbed. >> disturbed.

not just by ernie's confession but that it was a virtual match with the statement given by linda primrose, the woman that claimed back in 1962 that she witnessed the murder. >> when you look at the two pieces together, that's when it begins to make sense. >> a lot of sense, said katie, because the primrose statement checked out. she took the police to the exact location of the crime. she accurately described things that had not been made public. >> she said there was a woman there by the name of terry and that when terry saw ernie shoot the couple, she began pulling out her hair and there was human hair found at the crime scene. >> primrose said the killer's name was ernie and she was off on the last name, her description of him precise. >> she described him as being mexican. she gave accurate descriptions of his weight, his height, eye color. she said his hair was in a

waterfall. a waterfall looking hair do. >> in the age of brush cuts, this stood out. katie thought the woman clearly knew things about the crime and the killer that only an actual eyewitness would know. >> linda primrose story was overwhelming. >> that was enough to convince two prominent arizona lawyers to join the team. >> no one heard the story together. i think when you hear the two stories together, that's when you really come to the conclusion that this guy is innocent. >> to prove it, the arizona justice project began a painstaking examination of all of the evidence and discovered some of it was based as much on opinion as on science. >> the experts were permitted to testify that bill macumber's gun to the exclusion of any other weapon in the world is the gun

that fired these rounds. there's no scientific basis for that. the government never disclosed that the opinion given by the fbi agent who examined the shell casings at trial was not his opinion before trial. that was not disclosed to the defense. >> also, bill's palm print found on joyce sterrenberg's impala, that evidence evolved over time too. >> at the time it was lifted they don't know it is a fingerprint or palm print. it was never sent to the fbi for comparison purposes and it just sits in the file and then 12 years later when bill is arrested, they compare the print and all of a sudden it's a good print that matches bill. >> how would that have happened? bill claimed the print suddenly matched his because his ex-wife, carol, switched it in the evidence file. after all he said, carol working

in the sheriff's office had daily access to the evidence. had taken fingerprinting classes and even acknowledged practicing on bill at home so she could well have had his prints at the ready. >> i'm not saying carol did it. i know she had a motive to do it. i know she had the opportunity to do it. i know the story she told about bill's confession is nonsense. somebody else will have to figure it out. i can't come to an absolute conclusion other than ernie killed these two people and linda primrose saw it happened. >> to say ron was astonished about the evidence would be an understatement. >> i don't know how to put it. it sucked. in the back of my mind i'm thinking is he innocent? really innocent. >> if he's innocent, what about your mother? >> now i'm juggling two worlds. >> it was a dangerous road he was on but he knew he had to

know everything to matter what it might mean about his mother. >> there is something seriously wrong here. >> then he took a deep breath and wrote a letter to the man he had been taught to hate. what did you say in that letter? >> i said as of right now i don't know if you're innocent or guilty but i think it's time for the lines of communication to be opened. >> felt guilty about that. >> that's what i felt like at the time i was betraying my mom. >> weeks went by and then a reply. >> it probably took me two hours to open. first words were son, i love you. your father is not a murderer. >> how long did it take before you realized that you were changing sides? >> it took a while. i can only go by my experiences with the people that i've dealt with and have to decide for myself what is true. i'm angry now. it's taking until now for someone to realize that this evidence is not right? >> finally convinced of his

father's innocence, ron decided to visit him in prison. a reunion more than 20 years in the making. >> i turned around and he came out the door. my first thought was good god he's tall. and we just hugged. >> so ron embraced his father and stopped talking to his mother. a woman he now believed lied to him. who is the credible human being? who can we believe? why should we believe you and not bill? >> well, because i'm telling the truth. >> in 2009, after working for years, the arizona justice project had prepared its case. by that time bill had exhausted his appeals and chances for freedom looked miniscule but give up? not a chance. this time they went to the state clemency board with their evidence and the story of bill's amazing accomplishments in prison. they asked for mercy.

and the board voted unanimously to release him. all he needed was governor jan brewer's signature to make it official. how hopeful were you? >> as far as we were concerned, he was out. >> don't count your chickens.

bill macumber waited and so did the arizona justice project and so did bill's son, ron, for months, waiting with hope for jan brewer to approve the recommendation to set bill free and then the application came and was denied. what was it like to get that news? >> brutal. just brutal. it was devastating. we thought all of the work, everything was over. >> and then it almost was. >> the warden calls me and says you might want to get down here. he's very, very sick.

i'm now panicked. >> bill had a blockage in his small intestine that began hemorrhaging. doctors put him in a medically induced coma. just when ron was about to give up hope, bill came out of it and so a last attempt. it was now or never. the arizona justice project decided to fight for a new trial. county attorney bill montgomery wasn't buying it. you still felt that he was a guilty man. >> he was and he is. efforts to try to pin the murders on a different individual. efforts to try and insinuate if not outright claim that macumber, the convicted murderer, was a victim of a frame up and that his ex-wife was responsible for it. all of that had been argued before. >> they didn't get to hear all of the evidence, did they?

>> they heard admissible evidence. >> what about the confession? you look at the two guys, which one do you think committed the crime? >> that's exactly what i'm not supposed to do as a prosecutor. i'm supposed to look at the evidence and make a determination about the case that i have. >> wait a minute. here's this woman who says i was there. i saw it happen and then this ernie guy says i did it. >> she says that ernie salisar was there. >> if montgomery had intention of arguing his case in court, he couldn't. that's because the evidence from the original case had been destroyed when bill's appeals were exhausted. >> the county attorney ultimately was willing to sort of recognize the realities of the situation on both sides. his side and our side. and we were able to reach a resolution. >> of course there was a catch. bill macumber would be freed but only if he pleaded no contest to

a charge of second-degree murder. >> it was disappointing in a sense because he wasn't guilty and he couldn't admit guilt. >> for decades he fought to lose the stigma of guilt. no contest. he doesn't plead guilty. he would have died in prison before admitting to something he didn't do. >> finally thoughts of freedom and family prevailed so just last year after 38 years behind bars he took the deal. >> my father comes in all shackled up and one of the first things to happen is the judge orders the bailiff to remove all shackles. and that's not symbolic, i don't know what is. >> thank you, your honor. >> i was the first one to hug him. he was finally coming home. >> it was a day that i thought we may never see and he walked out in a pair of jeans and an old western shirt, which is

exactly what he wanted to wear when he walked out of prison. >> how does freedom feel? >> nothing like it. nothing like it. >> what has ron's support meant to you? >> everything. everything. very proud of him. i love him with all of my heart. he's his father's son. you know. >> not everyone was celebrating mind you. some people liked the story just the way it was like the families of tim mckillop and joyce sterrenberg. >> we know the man killed those two young people. to see this end the way it did is in my opinion pretty tragic. >> carol as you can imagine did not like the way it turned out. not one bit. >> bill is a killer. he's a double killer. i don't care if anybody else believes me. i know it. i have done all i can do to tell

the truth and just have to suffice. >> ron is using his father's name now. he's a macumber again and he's still trying to sort out the mystery in his family still struggling to forgive a parent but this time it's his mother. >> i know what the truth is. she knows what the truth is. as much as i despise her for what she's done, i do not hate my mother. i don't like who she is and what she's done. she's my mother and i love her. >> bill macumber spends days simply now with family. he's taken up fishing with his brother, bob. >> i never thought we would do this again. >> neither did i, robert. >> ron is getting to know his dad all over again. >> things you take for granted. all of the firsts that i've been waiting for to now have him back in my life no words for it. >> that's all for now.

i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. this sunday morning, the crisis in syria. a huge test for president obama. can he successfully make the case for a military strike? >> it's tough because people do look to the united states. and the question for the american people is, is that a responsibility they're willing to bear? >> the president's hard sell. will congress go align? here with me live to help answer that question, the white house chief of staff, denis mcdonough. right now much of congress is undecided, and polls show strong public opposition. we'll go coast to coast with three influential members of congress. plus, president obama's primetime address to the nation tuesday night. our roundtable weighs in on his challenge ahead. and there's just 48 hours before new york city's primary. >> stay out of the public eye. >> that's not for you to judge,

my friend. >> embattled mayoral candidate anthony wiener goes one on one with "today's" savannah guthrie in an exclusive interview. i'm david gregory. all that ahead on "meet the press" for sunday, september 8th. >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the world's longest-running television program, this is "meet the press." >> and good sunday morning. the obama administration has released disturbing pictures that apparently show the aftermath of a chemical attack in syria. this is video, the administration showed members of congress this week in order to make the case for military strikes. it appears to show victims of the august 21st attack by bashar al assad that killed more than 1,400 people. joining me now, the president's chief of staff, denis mcdonough. welcome back. >> thanks for having me, david. >> you have made the statements that these pictures, among other evidence, makes the case to congress and the american people, and yet congress doesn't appear to be with you when it

comes to military strikes. why not? >> look, i hope that every member of congress, before he or she decides how they'll cast their vote, will look at those pictures. let me tell you what i've been up to for the last couple weeks, david, talking to members of congress, dozens of them, including at least two who will be on your panel. nobody is rebutting the intelligence. nobody doubts the intelligence. that means that everybody believes that bashar al assad used chemical weapons against his own people to the tune that you just said, of killing nearly 1,500 on august 21st. so the question for congress this week is what are the consequences for his having done so? how congress chooses to answer that question will be listened to very clearly in damascus, but not just in damascus. also in tehran and lebanese and hezbollah. >> i want to apologize for interrupting. you're saying, look, if we don't do this, iran, which you believe is developing a nuclear weapon, looks at that and says, aha!