 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. 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 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. 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." The 1981 deaths of William and Michelle Becker were deemed an accident, but relatives and colleagues say they have nagging questions. 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.
– 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.)