FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2013 file photo, Sen. Craig Tieszen, R-Rapid City, talks to the South Dakota House Transportation Committee about teen driving safety in Pierre, S.D. Tieszen and his brother-in-law... (Associated Press) 
 
 PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota state representative and his brother-in-law drowned in an apparent kayaking accident in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, where they were attending a wedding for the lawmaker's daughter, officials said Thursday. 
 
 Gov. Dennis Daugaard's office said in a statement that state Rep. Craig Tieszen, 68, a Republican from Rapid City, and his brother-in-law, Brent Moline, 61, died Wednesday 
 
 Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender wrote on his Facebook page that Tieszen and Moline died in a kayak accident. Tieszen and his family had traveled to the Cook Islands for their wedding, according to Allender's post. 
 
 The Cook Islands Police Service didn't immediately return an email from The Associated Press seeking additional information. 
 
 The agency wrote in a Facebook post that officials had been at the scene of a "double tragedy at sea," saying two men had taken their kayaks over a reef and capsized. The post doesn't name Tieszen or Moline, but describes the two victims as American citizens aged 68 and 61. 
 
 Police haven't concluded their investigation, according to the post. 
 
 Tieszen, who served as chairman of the House Retirement Laws Committee, was in his first term representing District 34 in the House. He had previously served in the Senate from 2009 through 2016. 
 
 Tieszen spent 32 years in law enforcement before retiring as police chief of Rapid City in western South Dakota. A telephone message the AP left at Tieszen's home wasn't immediately returned. 
 
 "Craig Tieszen was a good man and a dedicated public servant, and his loss is very sad," Daugaard said in the statement. "Craig Tieszen spent his life serving the public. He was a thoughtful and conscientious legislator, and a leader on criminal justice issues." 
 
 The governor said he will order flags to fly at half-staff statewide to honor Tieszen on the day of his funeral, which hasn't yet been scheduled. ||||| Thirty-five years after police pulled the bodies of a conservation officer and his wife from Mattituck Inlet, his fellow officers are seeking new leads in a case that has long baffled the couple’s North Fork community. 
 
 Department of Environmental Conservation officers said Tuesday that, in advance of the 35th anniversary of the case, they are offering $15,000 for new information in the deaths of William and Michelle Becker of Mattituck on the night of March 10, 1981. 
 
 The case has hung for decades over William’s former colleagues at the DEC and the couple’s relatives, who said they could never quite accept police’s explanation that the pair accidentally drowned. 
 
 “We’ve always had the case open. We’ve always pondered what happened,” said Maj. Scott Florence, who leads the DEC’s Bureau of Environmental Crimes Investigation and probed the Beckers’ deaths in the 1990s. 
 
 Suffolk County homicide detectives said in a statement Tuesday that they “would be open to receiving any new information anyone had to provide.” 
 
 Southold Town Police Chief Martin Flatley could not be reached for comment Tuesday. 
 
 The DEC officers’ union and fraternal organization raised money for the reward, the largest in the department’s history. 
 
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 Michelle, 36, raised three children while running her beauty salon that, despite changes in ownership, is still called Michelle’s, said her brother, Michael Malkush of Cutchogue. 
 
 William, 43, he said, was a 15-year veteran of the DEC who took the North Fork assignment after patrolling elsewhere on Long Island. 
 
 They were last seen leaving a dinner party at the Mattituck home of Arthur Siemerling, a local heating oil dealer, about 11 p.m. on a brisk Tuesday night, police said. 
 
 William’s body was found 12 hours later in what was then called Matt-A-Mar marina, his foot caught on a boat’s swim platform and his arm tangled in electrical cable, in his forest green DEC uniform. He had a lump on his head, police said. 
 
 A Suffolk County police diver found Michelle’s body 40 feet from her husband’s about 20 hours later. Her slippers were on the dock near Siemerling’s boat. 
 
 Police said at the time that it appeared the couple took a detour to the boat on their way home from the dinner party. Yet relatives say a late-night trip to the dock seemed out of character for William, who was cautious and reserved. 
 
 William seemed to have drowned trying to save Michelle, who could not swim, then-Southold Town Police Chief Carl Cataldo told Newsday in 1981. 
 
 But Malkush said he felt police came to that conclusion too quickly, just hours after a marina worker found William’s body and before police discovered Michelle’s. 
 
 “I’m there in shock saying, ‘Why aren’t you out there looking for my sister?’ ” said Malkush, 64, a retired teacher. 
 
 Timothy Becker, the oldest of the couple’s three children, said he and his siblings are “so disenchanted with how the initial investigation took place” and want closure. 
 
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 “My mother’s body wasn’t even found yet, and Southold Town police detectives already put together exactly what happened and sold it to us as fact,” said Becker, 51, who lives in Southern California. 
 
 Malkush has hired two private investigators over the years. After 35 years, he said, police risk losing witnesses to old age. 
 
 “It’s going to take somebody to talk,” he said. “Somebody on their deathbed, or somebody who finds religion, or somebody with a guilty conscience.” ||||| ANCHORAGE - 
 
 A Barrow assistant district attorney who once served four years in the Washington state Legislature was shot and killed Monday evening, according to North Slope Borough officials. 
 
 Kristine Hilderbrand, an assistant to Borough Mayor Charlotte Brower, said Tuesday that 48-year-old Brian Sullivan died after a shooting at a local home which was reported at about 10 p.m. on the 5300 block of Laura Madison Street. 
 
 Ronald Fischer, 47, is being held as a suspect in the case, according to a court official. 
 
 Fischer is listed in an online inmate tracking service as being held by the Barrow Police Department, and court records show a case was filed Tuesday with charges pending. The official said an arraignment hearing will be held Wednesday morning. 
 
 Authorities have not described a motive in the case. 
 
 Sullivan, who had three daughters, is the first state prosecutor in memory to be killed in an apparent homicide. He was one of two assistant district attorneys tasked with prosecuting all crime in a borough larger than California. 
 
 Sullivan represented Tacoma as a Democrat in the Washington state House of Representatives from January, 1997, to January, 2001, said Greg Payne, officer coordinator for the House Chief Clerk's Office. 
 
 An Army combat veteran, Sullivan was also politically active in Alaska. At the time of his death, he was Republican party district chairman for the Barrow region, said longtime friend Jim Colver. 
 
 Sullivan ran unsuccessfully for Mat-Su Borough Mayor against Larry DeVilbiss in 2011. He had also served on the Mat-Su Borough School Board. 
 
 “Very straight shooter. He didn't mince around or waste words," said Colver, who served on the school board with Sullivan. "You always knew where Brian was at. He was a real advocate for working people." 
 
 Hilderbrand said police had made an arrest in the case, which is being investigated as a homicide. She said she could provide no details on the suspect or describe what police believe led to the shooting. 
 
 A court official said no charges had been filed as of noon Tuesday. 
 
 Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said Fairbanks troopers are flying to Barrow, at the request of interim North Slope Borough Police Department chief Darryl Holman. 
 
 Fischer, the man being held in connection to the case according to a court official, was previously convicted in Barrow court on multiple assault charges. He faces pending charges of kidnapping, felony threats of death or injury and assault related to a Sept. 21 case, court records show. 
 
 Fischer was most recently accused of violating conditions of his release Nov. 29. 
 
 Rick Svobodny, deputy attorney general for the state Department of Law's criminal division, said the other prosecutor assigned to Barrow was out of town visiting family at the time of the shooting. 
 
 "On the morning flight, we have an assistant attorney general from our Office of Special Prosecutions to do the legal work to aid police in their investigation," Svobodny said. "We are going to deal with the day-to-day operations of the DA's office by phone from Fairbanks." 
 
 According to Svobodny, no Alaska prosecutor in memory has been the victim of a targeted killing as a result of holding the position. 
 
 Sullivan’s next of kin have been notified, according to Hilderbrand. The prosecutor had separated from his wife, whom Colver described as Sullivan's high school sweetheart, but regularly returned to the Valley to see his daughters. 
 
 On his website, Sullivan described himself as a military veteran who served a combat tour in Iraq and served as a U.S. Army Judge Advocate General (J.A.G.). 
 
 He told Colver he once had a close call while stationed overseas. “He used to tell me he was lucky to be here because if atmosphere and conditions had been a little bit different, he would have been hit by a mortar," Colver said. 
 
 Sullivan had been stationed in Fairbanks and later at Fort Richardson. He retired as a major in the Army due to an injury sustained while para-jumping, Colver said. 
 
 The news of Sullivan's death Tuesday rattled Washington legislators, who said the former lawmaker left that state for Alaska after an unsuccessful bid to become a Superior Court judge. 
 
 "This is a guy who was a real straight-laced, kind of a conservative young man," said Rep. Steve Kirby, who replaced Sullivan in the Washington State House of Representatives. 
 
 “It’s about the last thing that I ever thought would ever come of Brian Sullivan. I’m still kind of reeling from the news," Kirby said in a phone interview as he stepped away from a Legislative meeting. 
 
 Kirby said the district has grown more conservative since Sullivan, a working class candidate who won votes with door-to-door campaigning, held the office. 
 
 In Washington, Sullivan was known as a moderate Democrat, Kirby said. In Alaska, he was a registered Republican who still appeared to hold some political or public service ambitions. 
 
 Sullivans sometimes talked about running for school board in Barrow, Colver said. 
 
 "He wanted to stay involved," Colver said. "He definitely had a future." 
 
 Reporters Chris Klint, Kyle Hopkins and Austin Baird contributed to this developing story. Please check KTUU.com and the Channel 2 newscasts for updates. ||||| The case of a police officer and his beautician wife who drowned after leaving a dinner party 35 years ago is getting a fresh look and a $15,000 reward. 
 
 The 1981 deaths of William and Michelle Becker were deemed an accident, but relatives and colleagues say they have nagging questions. 
 
 Now, officers at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, where William Becker, 43, worked as a police officer, have put up reward cash in the hopes of getting some answers. 
 
 "We don't know what happened after they left the dinner party," said DEC Police Maj. Scott Florence, who began looking into the mystery in the 1990s. "Some things at the scene raised a lot of questions." 
 
 An undated photo of Michelle and William Becker, who drowned in 1981. Courtesy Michael Malkush 
 
 The Beckers, married for 17 years and parents to three children, spent the evening of March 10, 1981, at a friend's house in Mattituck, Long Island, leaving shortly before midnight. 
 
 William Becker's body was found in a marina the next morning and the body of Michelle, 36, who owned a local beauty parlor, was discovered the next day. 
 
 The Suffolk County Police Department said there was no evidence of foul play and the case was officially closed in 1983. 
 
 Michelle Becker's brother, Michael Malkush, said investigators told him their theory was that the couple went to the marina to find the boat that belonged to the dinner party host and "get romantic." 
 
 "It made no sense," Malkush said, noting that it was dark and cold, the boat was under repair, his brother-in-law had a fear of water, and the couple's warm home was just a half-mile away. 
 
 "We just feel that they didn't go down there on their own and accidentally fall in the water and both drown. We're just trying to find out the missing pieces." 
 
 Florence noted that a kitchen table on the boat had come apart, and Becker's clip-on uniform tie was found on the floor, potential signs of a struggle. 
 
 "It leads you to believe the tie was pulled off and the table was broken," he said. 
 
 He said the 35th anniversary of the drownings was seen as an opportunity to bring attention to the case and perhaps dislodge some long-held secrets. 
 
 The police union and a fraternal organizations came up with the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone who might have been involved in the Beckers' deaths. 
 
 In a statement, the Suffolk County Police Department said Homicide Squad detectives are "open to receiving any new information anyone had to provide." 
 
 "I know we can't bring them back," Malkush said. "But there's got to be someone out there who has some answers. It just takes one person."
– A South Dakota state representative and his brother-in-law drowned in an apparent kayaking accident in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, where they were attending a wedding for the lawmaker's daughter, officials said Thursday. State Rep. Craig Tieszen, 68, a Republican from Rapid City, and his brother-in-law, Brent Moline, 61, died Wednesday, reports the AP. The Cook Islands Police Service wrote in a Facebook post that officials had been at the scene of a "double tragedy at sea," saying two men had taken their kayaks over a reef and capsized. The post doesn't name Tieszen or Moline, but describes the two victims as American citizens aged 68 and 61. New Zealand media indicated Tieszen died trying to save Moline. State Sen. Betty Olsen posted something similar on Facebook, saying her "heart was heavy" after she received a call informing her "Tieszen had died while trying to save his brother-in-law from drowning at Craig's daughter's wedding." Tieszen spent 32 years in law enforcement before retiring as police chief of Rapid City in western South Dakota in 2007, reports the Rapid City Journal. He served in the state Senate from 2009 through 2016 and was in his first term representing District 34 in the House. "Craig Tieszen spent his life serving the public. He was a thoughtful and conscientious legislator, and a leader on criminal justice issues," said Gov. Dennis Daugaard in a statement. The governor said he will order flags to fly at half-staff statewide to honor Tieszen on the day of his funeral, which hasn't yet been scheduled.