NYPD says it is now investigating the Hudson River death of a pioneering African American judge as 'suspicious' even though she was initially thought to have committed suicide

NYPD says it is now investigating the Hudson River death of a pioneering African American judge as 'suspicious' even though she was initially thought to have committed suicide

The body of State Court of Appeals Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam was retrieved fully clothed from the Hudson by the NYPD harbor unit on Wednesday.

Sheila Abdus-Salaam was found dead in the Hudson River Wednesday afternoon She was fully clothed, with no obvious signs of trauma suggesting foul play 

Police on Tuesday said they were treating the death as 'suspicious' 

The judge called in sick from work on Tuesday, then failed to show up at her Manhattan office on Wednesday, prompting a missing person report 

She was divorced and recently remarried Reverend Gregory Jacobs in June 

Abdus-Salaam lost her 92-year-old mother to suicide in 2012 on Easter and her brother to suicide two years later around Easter holiday 

Police official said the 65-year-old judge was struggling with depression and that she had began taking medication just weeks before her apparent suicide 

Abdus Salaam was a groundbreaking judge who was also the first African American woman to serve in New York's Court of Appeals 

Earlier reports called her 'the first female Muslim U.S. judge', but a spokesman for the Court of Appeals said she was not Muslim