Harlem, NY Judge Died By Suicide In Drowning

The New York City medical examiner has concluded that a prominent judge found in the Hudson River died by suicide in a drowning.

The medical examiner’s office issued the findings Wednesday in the death of 65-year-old Sheila Abdus-Salaam.

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A police harbor unit recovered her body in April 2017 after she was reported missing.

Abdus-Salaam was the first black woman on New York state’s highest court.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed Abdus-Salaam to the state’s Court of Appeals in 2013. He called her a “trailblazing jurist” whose legacy “will be felt for years to come.”

Abdus-Salaam graduated from Barnard College and Columbia Law School in Harlem, NY.

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She started her career as a staff attorney for East Brooklyn Legal Services. She served as a judge on the Manhattan state Supreme Court for 14 years.

Editor’s note: We’re very curious to find out why she committed suicide.

Photo credit: Police have distributed a poster asking for information, accompanied by a picture of Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam, photographed in 2013, dressed in a cream-colored jacket and pearls with wire-rimmed eyeglasses.