NYPD ends probe of Judge Abdus-Salaam's death

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - The NYPD has ended its investigation into the death of a high court judge whose body was found in the Hudson River.

The Harbor Unit pulled the body of Associate Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, 65, from the river near West 132 Street on April 12.

Police found no trauma to her body and no signs of foul play at the scene, supporting the belief that she died by suicide, law enforcement officials said. Nevertheless, detectives treated her death as suspicious and worked to retrace her final hours in order to figure out what happened to her.

Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said detectives gathered evidence and followed several leads but do not believe she was a victim of a crime. Police turned over evidence to the city's medical examiner. An earlier autopsy was inconclusive.

Abdus-Salaam broke gender, race and religious barriers when she was named to the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, in 2013. She was the first black woman on that court and was believed to have been the first female Muslim judge in the nation.