Suicide judge battled blues
A PIONEERING judge on the state’s highest court, despite an upbeat public demeanor, struggled mightily with depression before her apparent Hudson River suicide, sources said Thursday.
Court of Appeals Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam began taking medication for her condition just a few weeks prior to taking her own life, a well-placed court source told the Daily News.
The judge’s body was found floating along the Hudson River shoreline at W. 132nd St. around 2 p.m. Wednesday, clad in gym attire and sneakers. Police investigating the judge’s disappearance found her meds, according to the court source.
Cops are treating the case as a suicide, a police source told The News. Abdus-Salaam did not leave behind a suicide note, the source said. She called her assistant around 10 a.m. Tuesday to say that she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be reporting for work.
“There are no apparent injuries to her body,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. “It appears to be noncriminal . . . There is no apparent trauma. No physical abnormality at all.”
An autopsy was conducted Thursday, but the findings were inconclusive.
A 911 call alerted cops to the body spotted about a mile from Abdus-Salaam’s Harlem home. Boyce said she was carrying a MetroCard last used Monday in a 42nd St. subway station. Her cell phone was found at home.
The 65-year-old jurist, the first black woman appointed to the state’s highest court, was reported missing by her husband on Wednesday morning. The Rev. Gregory Jacobs, declined comment when approached by The News about his wife’s death.
Abdus-Salaam, often mentioned as the nation’s first female Muslim judge, actually took her first husband’s surname but never converted.
Friends and admirers on Thursday were still grappling with her death.
“I just saw her on the subway the other day,” said former Harlem Assemblyman Keith Wright. “She was always a very calming, beautiful presence.”