The body of the State Court of Appeals Judge, Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first black woman to serve on New York State’s highest court, recovered from th
The body of the State Court of Appeals Judge, Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first black woman to serve on New York State’s highest court, recovered from the Hudson River in Harlem, showed no sign of trauma and no indications of foul play. Police are therefore treating her death as a suicide, although the investigation is continuing.
Her brother was troubled over the death of his mom who died around Easter period and therefore shot himself with a handgun around the same Easter period.
Abdus-Salaam’s body was found floating in the Hudson River near 132nd Street at around 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday. She was wearing a jogging suit and was carrying nothing but a MetroCard that she’d last used in a 42nd Street subway station on Monday, sources said.
The judge was last heard from at around 10 a.m. Tuesday, when she sent an e-mail and called her assistant at her Manhattan chambers to say she was sick and wouldn’t be able to make it in to work.
But Abdus-Salaam didn’t show up the next day either, prompting the assistant to alert the judge’s husband of nine months, the Rev. Gregory Jacobs, who immediately alerted authorities.
Abdus-Salaam was last seen leaving her office at around 7 p.m. on Monday, and detectives are still trying to determine her whereabouts on Tuesday, police said.
“We don’t believe she was in the water the whole time,” Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.
“We have a long way to go. We’ve spoken to many people in her family about her history.”
Police haven’t found a suicide note, but Abdus-Salaam had told a doctor she was stressed recently, law-enforcement sources said.
Despite the fact that she broke barriers during her esteemed career on the bench, family tragedy surrounded her. She struggled with depression and likely committed suicide as her brother did three years ago, police sources said.
Meanwhile, colleagues of Abdus-Salaam, who became the country’s first female Muslim judge in 1994, praised her dedication and fairness.
“When I say I’ve never heard anyone say a bad thing about her, it’s not an exaggeration,” said lawyer Gennaro Savastrano who called the tragic jurist brave “in a way that commanded your respect.”
