Cavalcante Danelo evaded hundreds of law enforcement authorities for over two weeks after breaking out of a county jail last month.
Cavalcante The actual capture came place after over two weeks of searching involving hundreds of law enforcement agents, a fleet of drones, dogs, and helicopters, as well as Chester County, Pennsylvania’s cornfields and forests.
On Wednesday, shortly after 8 a.m., a group of police officers discreetly surrounded Danelo Cavalcante, 34, who had escaped from Chester County Prison, where he was being imprisoned after being found guilty of killing his ex-girlfriend. He attempted to escape through the brush after being startled, according to officials, but a search dog grabbed him.
At 8:16 a.m., an officer radioed dispatchers to say, “Subject is in custody.” “The subject is in custody, confirmed.”
Thus came to an end a manhunt that had frightened neighborhoods throughout Chester County, a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia, and even those back in Mr. Cavalcante’s native Brazil, where he is sought in connection with a 2017 slaying.
After breaking out of the jail on August 31 by climbing two walls and pushing through the razor wire on the roof, Mr. Cavalcante had successfully evaded a search that eventually involved 500 federal, state, and local law enforcement agents. He had been seen numerous times, and authorities had frequently thought they had cornered him only to be shocked when he suddenly appeared somewhere else.
Soon after the capture, Robert Clark, a supervisory deputy U.S. marshal, remarked, “We had confidence it was going to be Cavalcante.” However, throughout the previous 14 days, there have been other instances when we were confident that we would catch him.
When they discovered a delivery van that Mr. Cavalcante had stolen from a dairy farm and ostensibly abandoned after running out of petrol, they thought he had been in the area since Sunday morning. The search moved roughly 30 miles to the north, to a picturesque stretch of stone barns and dense woods south of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, after more than a week of concentrating on a region south of the county jail.
After Mr. Cavalcante stole a.22-caliber weapon from an unlocked garage nearby late Monday night, the search assumed a terrifying new urgency. The homeowner fired a revolver at him as he left with the gun, and the search was immediately stepped up, concentrating on a wooded and agricultural area of eight to ten square miles.
52-year-old Brandt Rempe claims a police officer involved in the extensive manhunt alerted him on Tuesday night while he was living in the search area. He remembered the officer saying, “‘Don’t be alarmed tonight,'” he said. “You may witness a lot of activity.”
According to Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police, a burglar alarm at a residence inside the perimeter was activated a little after midnight on Wednesday. When search crews arrived in response to the warning, they were unable to find anything but started searching the immediate area.
According to Colonel Bivens, at around one in the morning, a federal agency engaged in the hunt, the Drug Enforcement Administration, was operating an aircraft when it detected a nearby “heat signature,” which is a hint that something is emitting more heat than its surroundings. Officials claimed that the way it was moving suggested that it might be a person.
The aircraft had to leave because of a thunderstorm that passed over the area overnight, which prevented tactical personnel from following the signal. When the plane came back, the officers continued the search after waiting out the storm.
He still had the weapon when they got close to Mr. Cavalcante, but there were no shots fired and he was taken into custody. Colonel Bivens reported that Mr. Cavalcante got a “minor bite wound” from the search dog, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois named Yoda. Other than that, nobody was hurt.
Residents in the vicinity had found Mr. Cavalcante’s disappearance during the preceding 13 days to be unnerving and draining, but officials said it was not wholly unexpected.
Colonel Bivens remarked, “I don’t know that he was very skilled – he was desperate. “You have a decision to make: either return to prison and spend the rest of your life there, or keep attempting to elude capture. He decided to flee from capture.
Colonel Bivens, however, continued, “I was confident all along, that he would eventually be captured.”
The state’s Department of Corrections announced on Wednesday afternoon that Mr. Cavalcante had been taken into its custody and relocated to SCI Phoenix, a maximum-security facility in Montgomery County, west of Philadelphia.
Mr. Cavalcante’s recent escape from Chester County was not his first. After the murder in 2017, in the town of Figueirópolis in the north of Brazil, he reportedly hid from the police among the cattle ranches of the Brazilian savanna before making his way to the United States under a false name.
He was in a relationship with Deborah Brandao, a Brazilian mother of two who lived outside of Philadelphia. In April 2021, he turned violent and abusive, according to witnesses at his murder trial in the United States, and stabbed her 38 times to death in front of her small children.
He attempted to run again at that time, but was apprehended the following day in Virginia and returned to Pennsylvania to face charges. He was found guilty and given a life term in jail in August. He fled nine days later.
Mr. Cavalcante had received assistance from contacts during his brief effort to escape prior to his arrest in 2021, including a man residing with his sister. After stealing the van on Saturday, Mr. Cavalcante went to the homes of two of his old coworkers in need of assistance, but no one saw him. They informed the cops instead.
Colonel Bivens said that “there were people who were intent and intended to assist him” in his flight on Wednesday, but added that the authorities were able to stop these prospective complicits from contacting him. Colonel Bivens listed the sister of Mr. Cavalcante among them; she had just been held by immigration authorities for exceeding a visa and was about to be deported.
According to the authorities, Mr. Cavalcante would shortly be sent to a state prison in Pennsylvania to complete his life sentence. The first hearing in Mr. Cavalcante’s case will take place next month, according to prosecutors in the Brazilian state of Tocantins, where he has been charged in relation to the 2017 slaying. Mr. Cavalcante will be forced to attend the hearing via video call.
While there are still many unanswered concerns regarding the escape, including how the Chester County Prison has permitted numerous jailbreaks this year, many locals are finally exhaling a sigh of relief after over two weeks.
“We were watching transfers on YouTube and paying attention to police scanners,” said Robert Russell, a 27-year-old dad of four who lives close to a John Deere business where, on Wednesday morning, his family saw police officers hauling a messy looking Mr. Cavalcante free and clear. My wife and I both exclaimed, “We can finally open the blinds and let in the light and fresh air.”