text: 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." ||||| 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.”
target: – It's been exactly 35 years since the mysterious March 10, 1981, drowning of a Long Island couple, but their family and community are still calling on somebody—anybody—to come forward with information so they can finally piece together what happened, reports NBC News. The Department of Environmental Conservation officers' union and fraternal organization has even raised $15,000, the largest reward in the department's history, reports Newsday, while homicide detectives say they are "open to receiving any new information." William Becker, who was 43, was a 15-year veteran of the DEC; wife Michelle Becker, 36, owned a beauty salon. Married 17 years, the parents of three had gone to a dinner party in Mattituck that cold winter's night and left shortly before midnight. Police said William's body was found 12 hours later in his forest-green DEC uniform at what was then called Matt-A-Mar Marina with a bump on his head and his arm tangled in electrical cable. By the time Michelle's body was found 40 feet away 20 hours later, her slippers on the dock, police had surmised that the couple had stopped by a friend's boat to "get romantic," Michelle's brother Michael Malkush says, and that William had died trying to save Michelle, who couldn't swim. But many felt this didn't make sense given their fear of the water, the cold, and their home being so nearby. Even an investigator in the late '80s concluded that accidental drowning didn't make sense, reports the Suffolk Times. The Beckers' oldest child says he and his siblings are "so disenchanted" with the police investigation, adding, "It's going to take somebody to talk. Somebody on their deathbed, or somebody who finds religion, or somebody with a guilty conscience." (A man recently confessed to this 1982 cold case.)