Police Now Suspicious In Death Of New York Judge

Originally, police had suspected suicide in the death of Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, who served on New York’s highest court and was found dead in the Hudson River last week. But now Abdus-Salaam’s family is speaking out against that assumption, disputing widely circulated accounts of a history of suicide in her family and saying she was not suicidal. “Reports have frequently included unsubstantiated comments concerning my wife’s possible mental and emotional state of mind at the time of her death. Those of us who loved Sheila and knew her well do not believe that these unfounded conclusions have any basis in reality,” Gregory Jacobs, Abdus-Salaam’s husband, wrote in a statement. New York police have assigned a special team of investigators to the case.

Abdus-Salaam was the first black woman to serve on New York State’s highest court. The newly-married Abdus-Salaam called in sick to work on Tuesday, and on Wednesday her body was recovered from the Hudson River near Harlem, with no signs of trauma or indication of foul play. Abdus-Salaam had served on the State Court of Appeals since 2013. Before that she served four years as an associate justice on the First Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court, and she was a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan for 15 years.