He fled into the woods before police could capture him. The next night, Cavalcante was spotted by a resident in a creek bed on the resident’s property in Pennsbury Township, Bivens said, a few miles southeast of the jail. The camera captured the fugitive twice, once walking north and then about an hour later going south.īy that time, Cavalcante had obtained several items, Bivens said, including a backpack, a duffle sling bag and a hooded sweatshirt. Monday, September 4: Sighting at botanical gardensĪ security camera captured the fugitive in the evening two days later at Longwood Gardens, a botanical garden that sits several miles from Chester County Prison and would soon become the epicenter of the search effort. on a residential surveillance camera about 1.5 miles from the jail, the district attorney’s office said on Facebook.īivens said later that a state trooper also saw Cavalcante in the area. Saturday, September 2: Sighting near the jailĬavalcante was spotted early the next morning around 12:30 a.m. Drummond told his wife to call 911, he said, and then saw Cavalcante “walking methodically” out of the kitchen into his living room before leaving the house. “That’s when my stomach dropped,” he told CNN.ĭrummond switched the light on and off several times to signal to the intruder that he was being watched, and “after a little bit of a pause,” the intruder switched the light again in the kitchen. The first known sighting of Cavalcante after his escape occurred the next day, when Ryan Drummond says he saw the fugitive inside his home in Pocopson Township, not far from the jail.ĭescribing the sighting as an “acute moment of terror,” Drummond told CNN’s Michael Smerconish that his family was getting ready for bed when he heard a noise downstairs around 11:30 p.m. Chester County DAįriday, September 1: Sighting in Pocopson Township home That was his motive for the murder, according to prosecutors.ĭanilo Cavalcante crabwalks up a wall during his escape from Chester County Prison. When Brandão learned of the case, she threatened to expose Cavalcante to police, the district attorney’s office said in a statement on August 23, after he was formally sentenced. They are now in Sarah’s care.Ĭavalcante is also wanted in his native Brazil in a 2017 homicide case, according to the US Marshals Service. But Cavalcante murdered Brandão in April 2021, prosecutors said, stabbing her 38 times in front of her two young children. Sarah said her sister told her he was “extremely jealous” and “became a different person” when he drank.Ī probable cause affidavit indicates Brandão filed a protection from abuse order against Cavalcante in 2020. He was kind at first to Brandão and her children, Sarah said, but that changed over time. The two were neighbors and dated for about a year and a half, the victim’s sister, Sarah Brandão, told CNN. CBS News PhiladelphiaĮscaped Pennsylvania killer Danelo Cavalcante was surrounded by tactical teams moments before a police dog subdued him On August 16, about two weeks before he absconded, a jury convicted Cavalcante of first-degree murder in Brandão’s killing – a crime that in Pennsylvania carries a mandatory life sentence without parole, according to the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.Įscaped inmate Danelo Cavalvante is captured by law enforcement on Wednesday, September 13.

Here’s a timeline of his escape and the manhunt.Ĭavalcante is convicted, sentenced to life in prison George Bivens of the state police, who led the search.Īuthorities, who previously had spelled Cavalcante’s first name in documents as Danelo, changed it to Danilo in court filings on Wednesday. Hundreds of law enforcement officers were searching for Cavalcante, 34, who escaped August 31 from Chester County Prison, where he was held after his conviction last month in the 2021 killing of his former girlfriend, Deborah Brandão.īut it was two tactical teams – one from the Pennsylvania State Police, another from US Border Patrol – who moved in on Cavalcante Wednesday morning and deployed a police dog that subdued the fugitive before he was taken into custody, according to Lt.

The manhunt for a convicted murderer who escaped from a Pennsylvania jail outside Philadelphia has come to an end after nearly two weeks, with authorities confirming Wednesday morning that Danilo Cavalcante was in custody.

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