Residents in the southeast of the state of Pennsylvania regained peace this Wednesday and their children can go to school without fear, which at times even closed as a precaution. A murderer was on the loose. Danelo Cavalcante, 34, sentenced to life in prison for ending the life of his girlfriend with knives in 2021, is back behind bars after 14 days of frantic and frustrating persecution.
“The nightmare is over,” stressed Deb Ryan, the prosecutor of Chester County, where the prison from which the inmate, barely five feet tall, escaped with an acrobatic exercise is located, just nine days after knowing his sorrow. The video of his pirouette has been constantly repeated on American television throughout these two weeks.
Between two walls, in the sports yard, resting his feet on one wall and his hands on another, the convict climbed to the top, cleared the barbed wire fence and left across the roof, without the watchman in the turret. (now fired) realized what was happening. Something similar was recorded in May, but the guards were attentive and neutralized the escape. This time more than an hour passed before a count detected the absence.
“We can finally sleep,” Ryan sighed. The neighbors also breathed calmly and, with the danger and the press coverage eliminated, they prepared to reconnect with the pulse of everyday life.
The escape of Cavalcante, originally from Brazil, where he apparently escaped another murder charge for killing a man in 2017, has become an obsession for the media, especially cable channels. Every so often there was a reminder of the supposed danger ahead.
During the chase, the police have been deployed through rural areas, forests and small towns, just over an hour’s drive from Philadelphia. There was a neighbor who claimed to have seen him inside his house, who grabbed some food and ran away. Investigators determined that he visited the gardens and rooms of other residences
From Brazil, the mother, Iracema Cavalcante, begged her son to surrender. In vain. Despite her bloody history, she maintained that Danelo was “not a threat to anyone.” She also gave a warning. Her son was a kind of Rambo whose life of “suffering” had trained him to survive alone and overcome all kinds of circumstances. He never went to school, at the age of five he earned his living by shining shoes, then he sold things at markets or worked in the fields. “She’s just fighting for his survival,” the mother told The New York Times. She stressed that he was able to resist hunger, inclement weather or lack of sleep, and to endure pain.
The alarms intensified on Monday night. A resident in a wooded area, about 25 kilometers from the Chester prison from which the murderer escaped on August 31, claimed that he had an encounter with Cavalcante, whom he shot with his pistol, but that he was able to leave after stealing a rifle.
Unlike other sightings and being captured by security cameras, the encounter on Monday night at that farm has, however, been the definitive clue to finding him. That complaint caused the police to focus on that perimeter.
A surveillance plane from the DEA, the US anti-drug agency that also joined the search operation, detected a heat patch in a patch of tall vegetation. Shortly before eight in the morning, the agents surrounded Cavalcante, who, knowing he was surrounded, grabbed the rifle and began to crawl to escape the encirclement.
Perhaps he could have fled from the human breath, but not from the police dog that detected him and facilitated his arrest. There was no resistance and the criminal only had a small wound from a canine bite. The authorities began the deportation process of Cavalcante’s sister, who apparently helped him.
The family of Deborah Brandao, who died due to Cavalcante’s wrath, expressed their satisfaction that the convict was back behind bars. “They screamed with joy,” said prosecutor Ryan about the family’s response.
Since the escape, Brandao’s loved ones have been locked up, barricaded for fear that the perpetrator of the crime would approach. The prosecutor stressed that she worked with them for two years to prepare for the trial. “These children saw how her mother died, the girl testified at the oral hearing,” she explained.
Despite the final success, the arrest was partly marred because several agents took a photo with Cavalcante once captured, as if he were a hunting trophy. “These men and women have worked hard under difficult circumstances. They feel proud,” Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens, of the Pennsylvania State Police, exonerated them.
