Danbury Man Acquitted Of Interfering With Police

DANBURY — A jury last week acquitted a Danbury man who was on trial in Danbury Superior Court on a charge of interfering with police in connection with a state police investigation into the 1984 disappearance of a Sherman woman.

The six-member jury acquitted Ernest Dachenhausen, 66, on May 7, following a three-day trial.

State police arrested Dachenhausen on that charge in April 2008.

In the fall of 2007, state police conducted an extensive excavation of the backyard at a Farrell Road home in the Hawleyville section of Newtown in seeking clues into the disappearance and presumed homicide of Mary Badaracco, who was reported missing from her Sherman home by her daughters in August 1984. Dachenhausen formerly owned the Farrell Road property that state police excavated.

State police had received a search and seizure warrant that allowed them to search the rear yard of the home on Farrell Road.

State police have said that investigators did not find Badaracco’s body or body parts in the excavation.

During the excavation, items, including several automobiles, were seized as evidence in the case. State police detectives developed several leads as a result of that excavation.

State police contended that Dachenhausen had provided them with false information about vehicles that he had buried on the Farrell Road property.

Badaracco has not been located and she was declared legally dead in 1991. She was 38 years old when she was reported missing.

Generally, the charge known as interfering with police, which is Class A misdemeanor, is construed to mean that the defendant has obstructed, resisted, hindered, or endangered a peace officer in the performance of his lawful duties.