The body of Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first black female judge to sit on New York’s highest court, was found Wednesday along the Hudson River in Manhattan.

Abdus-Salaam, 65, sat on the New York Court of Appeals, and was the first black woman to rise to that bench. The New York Police Department told BuzzFeed News her cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner, but there were no signs of injury or trauma to her body.

Abdus-Salaam had been reported missing by her husband on Tuesday, police said. The New York Post reported that her death appeared to be suicide.



She was born in Washington, DC, attended public schools there, then moved to New York to attend Barnard College, according to the New York State Courts. She received her law degree from Columbia University in 1977, then went to work at East Brooklyn Legal Services as a staff attorney.

Abdus-Salaam was elected as a judge in New York City in 1991, then in 1993 was elected to New York County's Supreme Court. Gov. David Paterson appointed her to the state's appellate division in 2009, and in 2013 she was appointed and confirmed to the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.