First African-American female judge in US found dead in river

Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first African-American female Muslim judge in the United States is dead.

Her body was found floating in the Hudson River Wednesday afternoon. She was 65 years old.

According to the New York Post, Abdus-Salaam was discovered by witnesses who alerted the authorities.The deceased, an associate judge in the US Court of Appeals, had been reported missing from her home earlier in the day, before being discovered dead in the river.

It was reported by NY Times that the police said there were no signs of trauma on her body as she was fully clothed when discovered. It was also reported that investigators found no signs of criminality.

Abdus-Salaam graduated from Columbia Law School and started her career as a staff attorney at East Brooklyn Legal Services before she was elected to the Supreme Court in 1993. In 2013, New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo appointed her to the Court of Appeals in 2013.