Danelo Cavalcante changes appearance as escaped convict is spotted again

A prison officer who failed to report Danelo Cavalcante’s escape from a Pennsylvania jail has been fired.

The development comes just days after Chester County Prison acting Warden Howard Holland said the officer’s actions were at the centre of an investigation by the state attorney’s office.

The correctional officer had previously been placed on administrative leave after he failed to see and report Cavalcante’s escape on 31 August.

The daughter of Danelo Cavalcante’s victim told police that he showed up at their house and said he was going to do “something bad to their lives”, according to an affidavit.

The seven-year-old daughter of Deborah Brandao told police that he “pulled two knives out from a black bag that was behind his back”.

She started screaming and Cavalcante hit her with a rock, police wrote in the affidavit.

Cavalcante is also a suspect in a 2017 homicide case in Brazil, according to US Marshals Service.

Danelo Cavalcante managed to break out of prison using an unconventional method, according to officials, which involved “crab-walking” up a wall, pushing through razor wire and making a dash across a roof.

Acting warden Howard Holland of Chester County Prison said during a news conference on Wednesday that 34-year-old Cavalcante executed his escape on the morning of 31 August while his prison block was in the exercise yard, and an officer in a tower failed to notice his departure.

Authorities said that the woods in the search perimeter are so vast that investigators can only walk a few feet without losing sight of each other.

Pennsylvania State Lt Col George Bivens said that search units were experiencing challenges amid hot weather while canvassing the area where Cavalcante is believed to be hiding.

A K-9 unit had to be hospitalised on Tuesday, Mr Bivens said, after suffering a heat-related medical incident.

“I don’t think he has more ability than we initially gave him credit for, I think it’s a very challenging area,” Mr Bivens said. “We have had some searches like this in the past … some take hours, some take days, some take months.”

Authorities said during a press conference on Thursday that the search perimeter had to be expanded to between eight to 10 square miles after Cavalcante slipped past the initial search area.

There was a possible sighting of Cavalcante on 7 September that was being investigated, state police said, but further details about the sighting and who reported it were not disclosed. It came hours after another person reported seeing Cavalcante in an area of Longwood Gardens in East Marlborough Township.

On 4 September, a surveillance camera on a trail had captured him walking through its grounds.

The images show that Cavalcante has obtained a backpack and a hooded sweatshirt during his escape.

Cavalcante has been seen at the intersection of Routes 926 and 52, north on Route 52 to Parkersville Road, southeast to Route 926 and west to the intersection of Routes 926 and 52 in Pocopson Township, police said.

There have also been two reported burglaries in the area that police have investigated, but these are not currently confirmed to be linked to the escaped prisoner.

“I decided not to confront him and thought it was a better move to flick the light switch,” Mr Drummond, whose wife and children were also in the home, told the Inquirer. “And he flicked it back at me, which was terrifying, so I told my wife to call 911.”

Mr Drummond said that Cavalcante entered the home through an old French door that couldn’t lock properly.

He said his nine-year-old daughter had raised fears about Cavalcante being able to gain access to the home through the door, but he tried to reassure her that the murder convict was likely far away.

“The last few days have been surreal. It’s tough,” Mr Drummond said. “We’re all jumpy, and I could see this has taken a psychological toll on my kids. If they’re in the room by themselves, they’re calling for us.”

Close to 400 police officers have been assigned to the manhunt to find escaped convict Danelo Cavalcante, according to CNN.

“We pulled more people in through the night last night. We have got numerous tactical teams that are out doing searches,” Pennsylvania State Police spokesman George Bivens told reporters on Friday.

Residents of the suburban Pennsylvania county where a full-scale manhunt is underway for an escaped inmate have said they can’t understand why it has taken authorities so long to capture the “extremely dangerous” killer.

Danelo Cavalcante was sentenced to life behind bars for the April 2021 murder of Deborah Brandao. He broke free from jail days later, sparking an ongoing manhunt.

The Independendent’s Faiza Saqib reports:

One of the country’s top botanical gardens has been closed indefinitely after reports that an escaped murderer on the run in southeast Pennsylvania may have once again been spotted on the property.

When Longwood Gardens closed Thursday night, people who remained on the property were told to shelter in place as law officers searched part of the site for fugitive Danelo Souza Cavalcante. The 34-year-old Brazilian man escaped from the Chester County Prison on Aug. 31 by scaling a wall, climbing over razor wire and jumping from a roof.

There was a possible sighting of Cavalcante on Thursday night that was being investigated, state police said, but further details about the sighting and who reported it were not disclosed. It came hours after another person reported seeing Cavalcante in another area of the vast botanical garden.

On Monday night, a surveillance camera on a trail had captured him walking through its grounds.