Last month, Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, 65, the first African-American woman on the New York Court of Appeals was found dead in the Hudson River.  When the judge went missing, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said the New York Police Department put a lot of manpower into tracking her final hours on April 11th and 12th and the ultimate cause of death was ruled a suicide. She was captured on video nine times, but there is still a blank space, as the video did not pick up her image between a sighting near the river at 12:30AM on April 12th, and the time her body was found 13 hours later.  Boyce said the New York Police Department completed its investigation into the judge's cause of death on Wednesday, May 3rd.  A thorough investigation was undertaken, and investigators tracked down and looked into all leads, finding no criminality.  Boyce indicated the woman's death likely was a suicide.  All evidence was turned over to the medical examiner who will need to make the final determination regarding cause of death.

Image Courtesy of BBC

Early reports had said Abdus-Salaam was the first female Muslim judge in the United States. However, a statement from the family indicated that Abdus-Salaam had not been a practicing Muslim for the past 20 years. She became a lower court judge in 1994. She went on to become a judge on an intermediate appeals court before she joined the state’s top court in 2013.  “As the first African-American woman to be appointed to the state’s Court of Appeals, she was a pioneer,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “Through her writings, her wisdom and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come.”

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Police find no criminality in death of judge on New York's top courtNew York judge's death a possible suicide, law enforcement sources say