The fugitive who escaped Chester County Jail and has eluded authorities for per week and a half was seen on Saturday night time close to a city about 25 miles from the realm the place a whole lot of legislation enforcement officers had been trying to find him for days, the Pennsylvania State Police stated.
The state police launched images early Sunday of Danelo Cavalcante, 34, that they stated had been taken close to Phoenixville, Pa., apparently by a door digicam. He was seen clean-shaven, carrying a black baseball cap, a light-colored hooded sweatshirt and inexperienced jail pants. He had additionally apparently obtained a automobile, a 2020 White Ford van with a refrigeration unit on the highest. It had been reported stolen by a dairy farm not removed from the jail.
Late morning Sunday, nonetheless, the Pennsylvania State Police stated in a message on X, the platform previously referred to as Twitter, that “investigative leads have emerged that point out Cavalcante is not” within the Phoenixville space. The company didn’t say the place the search was now specializing in.
Phoenixville is a few 40-minute drive north of the place the search has been going down. Mr. Cavalcante, a Brazilian nationwide, murdered his ex-girlfriend, Deborah Brandão, simply exterior of the city in April 2021. He was sentenced to life in jail for the homicide simply days earlier than he escaped. In line with testimony at his trial, reported within the Day by day Native Information of West Chester, Mr. Cavalcante, who had been residing in a city a number of miles away, had a sister residing in Phoenixville, and known as on mates there after the homicide to assist him flee. He was caught in Virginia; authorities consider he was making an attempt to make his means again to Brazil.
Ms. Brandão’s sister and kids nonetheless dwell within the Phoenixville space. Final Thursday, Deborah Ryan, the Chester County district lawyer, stated that they had been “terrified” of Mr. Cavalcante and had not left their house since he escaped.
“They’re barricaded inside and really involved about their security,” Ms. Ryan stated, including that they had been underneath 24-hour police safety.
Mr. Cavalcante can be needed in Brazil for allegedly killing a person in 2017 in a metropolis within the northern a part of the nation. That point, too, he managed to evade authorities.
“After the crime that he dedicated down there, he did one thing similar to this within the jungle,” stated Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police in a briefing on Friday.
The sighting in Phoenixville comes days after authorities introduced that the search operation had grown to incorporate almost 400 federal, state and native officers, utilizing drones, canines, horses and helicopters. The world authorities had been specializing in had shifted over the course of the final week, however on Friday, it narrowed to an eight- to 10-square-mile sector together with Longwood Gardens, a sprawling botanical backyard the place Mr. Cavalcante had been seen a number of instances.
It has been greater than 10 days since he clambered up a wall exterior the train yard at Chester County Jail, pushing via razor wire, working throughout a roof and scaling a fence to flee. The officer on obligation in a watchtower on the time, who didn’t discover the jail break, has been fired.
Within the small communities and wooded areas close to the jail, Mr. Cavalcante was seen a number of instances, at instances by native residents and at instances on safety cameras. Baily’s Dairy at Pocopson Meadow Farm, which reported the stolen van, lies within the rural space between the gardens and Chester County Jail.
In a message on Fb, the house owners of Baily’s Dairy stated the van was stolen between 7 and 10 p.m. “whereas we had been nonetheless right here working.” They added that they had been “simply as dissatisfied as everybody that he broke via the perimeter.”