It still doesn't explain how their bodies were able to reach the final resting spot. There's long pier that would have been an obstruction just north of where their bodies were found. And if they drowned, then they would have sank, they would not have floated like logs down river immediately after drowning. And if they think they entered the water near that park, they should find evidence of their activity, like the duct tape roll, scissors, perhaps their purses.
The first photo below is that of the long pier (I believe) you are talking about, and the second is a closer shot of it. I do think that maybe the bodies floated between the pillars, IMO.
Also, I am going to attach a SS showing the location where Rotana and Tala are believed to have been seen the morning of the day they were found, and the location where their bodies were found, just for reference.
As to whether or not the bodies would float, here are a couple of cases in which, apparently, the body did not sink immediately:
April 12, 2017 (the day the body was found):
“Officers with the New York Police Department’s Harbor Unit responded about 1:45 p.m. to a report of
a person floating by the shore near West 132nd Street in Upper Manhattan. Judge Abdus-Salaam, 65, was taken to a pier on the Hudson River and was pronounced dead by paramedics shortly after 2 p.m.
The police were investigating how she ended up in the river, and it was not clear how long Judge Abdus-Salaam, who lived nearby in Harlem, had been missing.
There were no signs of trauma on her body, the police said. She was fully clothed.
A law enforcement official said investigators had found no signs of criminality. Her husband identified her body.“
Sheila Abdus-Salaam, Judge on New York’s Top Court, Is Found Dead in Hudson River
April 13, 2017:
“When Judge Abdus-Salaam — the first black woman to serve on New York State’s highest court — failed to appear at work on Wednesday, her assistant grew concerned and contacted her husband, who reported her missing, the law enforcement officials said. Then that afternoon, there was a terrible discovery:
The judge’s body floating, fully clothed and with no apparent signs of trauma, in the Hudson River.
[SBM]
In the hours after her body was found, the police said they were treating her death as a suicide. The judge, 65, had recently told friends and a doctor that she was suffering from stress.
[SBM]
But by Thursday afternoon, investigators had reached no clear conclusion, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. The medical examiner’s office said that ‘the cause and manner of death were pending further studies’; police detectives were looking for surveillance video along her possible path to see if it revealed her movements, and whether or not it supported the theory that she had walked into the river.”
Mystery and Melancholy Surround Death of Judge Found in the Hudson
April 21, 2017:
“More than a week after
the body of Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam was found floating in the Hudson River, the police in New York City were still piecing together her last moments, trying to determine how her life came to an end.
The night before her body was discovered, video cameras recorded Judge Abdus-Salaam, a widely respected New York State Court of Appeals jurist, walking around for hours in Riverbank State Park in Upper Manhattan, according to several people briefed on the investigation into her death.
Surveillance footage shows the judge leaving her home in Harlem on the evening of April 11, wearing the same clothes that she wore when she was found the next day, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation. Judge Abdus-Salaam then made her way to the park;
the cameras last captured her standing near the water’s edge.
The medical examiner’s office has not made a determination on what caused the death of Judge Abdus-Salaam, who was the first black woman to serve on the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. Her body was found on the afternoon of April 12
in shallow water along the shore of the Hudson River near West 132nd Street.
This week, a police spokesman said that the judge’s death was being deemed as ‘suspicious,’ a characterization that applies to cases in which the circumstances have not been clearly established.
But after nine days of investigation, detectives and police officials were still leaning toward the conclusion that Judge Abdus-Salaam, 65, took her own life, although some questions remained unanswered, three people briefed on the inquiry said on Friday. Perhaps foremost among them is why the judge might have committed suicide.
An autopsy uncovered bruises on the judge’s neck,
and found water in her lungs, suggesting that she was alive when she went into the river, a police official said. One possibility, the official said, was that she had been choked sometime — even days earlier — before going into the river.
Investigators indicated it was possible the marks could stem from bruising incurred during her body’s retrieval.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...peals-court-judge-death-hudson-river.amp.html
July 26, 2017:
“Putting to rest a mystery that initially puzzled investigators,
the New York City medical examiner’s office ruled on Wednesday that the death of Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first black woman to serve on New York State’s highest court, was a suicide.
In a statement, the medical examiner’s office said the cause of the judge’s death was drowning.
On April 12, the body of Judge Abdus-Salaam, 65,
was discovered —
fully clothed and with no apparent signs of trauma — floating in shallow water along the shore of the Hudson River near West 132nd Street in Harlem, not far from her home.
[SBM]
Although a police official said at the time that her death had been deemed ‘suspicious,’ detectives eventually leaned toward the conclusion that she had killed herself, especially after
images from surveillance cameras emerged showing that on the night before her body was found, Judge Abdus-Salaam had been walking around for hours in Riverbank State Park in Upper Manhattan.
Police officials said
an autopsy of the judge’s body uncovered bruises on her neck and found water in her lungs, suggesting that she had been alive when she went into the river. Investigators indicated that it was possible that the bruises were made during the retrieval of the body.“
Death of Pioneering New York Judge Is Ruled a Suicide (all BBM)
The last attached photo shows the location where Judge Abdus-Salaam was captured on camera standing by the water the night before her body was found, and the approximate location where her body was found.
Since this is already way too long, I will post the other story separately.
This is a tuffie.
![2000[1].jpg](/forums/data/attachments/128/128023-38327eb309e2c924fe00a41ed20a96cc.jpg)
![d2df9145-f239-47fe-9a90-cc4a989fd1ae_16x9_320x180[1].jpg](/forums/data/attachments/128/128024-863901f677170b16c798433aea6379d9.jpg)
