When police questioned Badaracco, he told them he had last seen Mary when she left for work on Aug. 20, 1984. He said that when he returned home, her car was in the driveway, but she was nowhere to be found, and her personal belongings were missing from the house. Because the police had few leads, their work on the case quickly came to a standstill.
Approximately nine months after Mary's disappearance, Badaracco appeared for a divorce hearing before Judge John J.P. Ryan. Mary was not at the hearing. Court documents listed her whereabouts as "parts unknown." During the hearing, Badaracco told the court that he and Mary had worked out the details of the divorce before she left and that she had agreed to let him keep the home in exchange for the amount of cash she had taken with her. As a result of Badaracco's testimony and because Mary did not appear in court, Judge Ryan granted Badaracco the divorce and gave him the remainder of the couple’s property, including the house and motor vehicles.
Mary's missing person file continued to collect dust until 1986 when police received a tip from a former member of the Bridgeport chapter of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang who was in the Witness Protection Program. The informant said he had heard another member of the gang discuss "hitting Mary Badaracco." Police questioned the person the informant identified, but he denied any involvement, and the case again went cold.
An August 2000 issue of the Hartford Courant states that Badaracco's son from a previous marriage, Joseph "Joey" Badaracco, is "an acknowledged member of the Hell's Angels." The article also indicates that Joey served time in prison for arson after hiring two men to firebomb a bar in 1989. Nonetheless, neither Joey nor his father has ever been named as a suspect in Mary's disappearance.
