Schools closed as search for Pennsylvania fugitive expands
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A man believed to be Danelo Cavalcante was captured on a trail camera in Longwood Gardens, within a few miles from the county prison, on Sept 4, 2023.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
Pennsylvania – Two school districts in Pennsylvania cancelled classes on Tuesday as troopers searched by land and air for a convicted murderer who was spotted near residential areas after escaping from a prison near Philadelphia last week, the authorities said.
The fugitive, Danelo Cavalcante, 34, a Brazilian national, fled from the Chester County Prison on Thursday, days after he was convicted of first-degree murder in the April 2021 killing of his former girlfriend. The authorities said he stabbed her 38 times in front of her two children.
On Tuesday, investigators said they had expanded the search for Cavalcante because of several sightings just miles from the prison in Pocopson Township, adding that a reverse 911 call had been made to residents within a 4.8km radius early on Tuesday.
Police cars and helicopters were also playing a message with the voice of Cavalcante’s mother urging him in his native Portuguese to surrender peacefully, the authorities said on Monday.
Lieutenant-Colonel George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police said at a news conference on Tuesday that one of the sightings of Cavalcante was probably on Monday evening, when a trail camera picked up a man walking on a property at Longwood Gardens, less than 4.8km south of the prison.
“He has obtained a backpack, a duffel sling-type pack and a hooded sweatshirt,” Lt-Col Bivens said.
The Chester County district attorney’s office said on Saturday that a residential surveillance camera had also spotted Cavalcante near the prison that same day. The office said that the police had also received a report of an attempted burglary at 11.30pm on Friday in the Pocopson Township.
Officials said they believed that Cavalcante might have been hiding in a heavily wooded area near the prison that is in the vicinity of almost 300 homes.
“We are also asking the community to avoid the wooded area or anything outside of the immediate area around their homes” in the area near the sightings, Lt-Col Bivens said Monday.
Because of the sightings, Lt-Col Bivens said that the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District and the Kennett Consolidated School District, near the area where the sightings have been reported, cancelled classes early on Tuesday.
Local and federal authorities, including the US Marshals Service, announced a US$10,000 (S$13,600) reward for information leading to the capture of Cavalcante.
“He’s a bad guy, he needs to be in custody, and we’re determined to capture him,” Lt-Col Bivens said.
Chester County district attorney Deborah Ryan said over the weekend that it appeared that Cavalcante was acting alone. The officials say he is 1.5m tall and also speaks Spanish,
An image provided by the Chester County District Attorney from home surveillance video showing a person believed to be escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcante.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
Cavalcante was sentenced to life in prison on Aug 22.
A jury had found him guilty of fatally stabbing his former girlfriend Deborah Brandao less than a week earlier, Ms Ryan said in a recent Facebook post.
Ms Brandao had learned of a warrant for Cavalcante’s arrest in connection with a killing in Brazil, and she threatened to tell the police, according to the district attorney’s office.
After killing Ms Brandao, in April 2021, Cavalcante who was living in Royersford, Pennsylvania, at the time tried to make his way back to Brazil but was arrested by the police in Virginia, the district attorney said. NYTIMES
