WEST CHESTER — The saga of escaped murderer Danelo S. Cavalcante came to an end Friday in the same location it began, in a way, just over a year ago.
Cavalcante entered a guilty plea before Judge Alison Bell Royer to charges related to his escape, including breaking into a home near the Chester County Prison and stealing a rifle from a northern Chester County homeowner.
As part of the sentence negotiated by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and Cavalcante’s attorney, he was given an added 15 to 30 years in state prison to the mandatory life without parole sentence he received for the murder of his estranged girlfriend in 2021.
“Acceptance of responsibility, even when it coms late, is better late than never,” said Royer to Cavalcante, seated at the defense table, dressed in a bright orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit, his hands and feet shackled. “I believe this is a fair and just resolution. I am glad for the acceptance of responsibility. Ultimately, for all involved this now is closure day.”
The terms of the plea agreement were presented to Royer by Cavalcante’s attorney, Lonny Fish of Westtown, and Senior Deputy Attorney General Christopher Phillips. Fish said that his client had from the beginning of his representation wanted to put the matter behind him. “Mr Cavalcante accepted (the prosecution’s offer) in a quick fashion,” he said. “Mr. Cavalcante understands the severity of the case.”
The setting of the proceeding Friday was certainly familiar to Cavalcante. On Aug. 16, 2023, the jury that had heard Deborah Brandao’s daughter testify that she watched as Cavalcante stabbed her mother more than 30 times outside their Schuylkill Township home found him guilty of first-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime in the same venue — stately Courtroom One of the county Justice Center — where he entered his plea to the escape charges.
The seventh floor courtroom features windows that look out on the western landscape outside West Chester. Barely visible in the distance is the water tower at the county prison, located in Pocopson.
Cavalcante had been housed there since his arrest in April 2021 for Brandao’s murder, and would be returned there on Aug. 22, 2023, after Judge Patrick Carmody imposed his sentence of life in prison plus 2½ to five years on the person he called a “little man” for forcing Brandao’s daughter to take the stand against him.
What those in that courtroom did not know at the time was that Cavalcante — a small, slight man of 35 with bushy black hair — had been formulating a plan to flee the prison and somehow make his way back to his native Brazil.
He had been in prison with another man, Igor Bolte of West Chester, who had shimmied up a pair of walls in an outdoor exercise yard and jumped from the roof in May to freedom.
Bolte had been caught almost immediately, however, when a corrections officer in an observation tower saw him running across the rooftop. He was found trying to hide in a neighboring home’s swimming pool and returned to a jail cell.
Cavalcante would be luckier. On the morning of Aug. 31, 2023, while awaiting transport to the state prison system and working on his murder conviction appeal by his public defenders, Cavalcante did the same crab walk up the walls, slipped through the makeshift barriers that had meant to plug the hole Bolte escaped through, climbed to the roof, and eventually made his way to the road beyond the prison.
Another corrections officer stationed in the same tower as the previous one failed to spot him, however, distracted while looking at a smartphone. He was later fired from his job.
But what became clear in the days after a huge manhunt was assembled to track Cavalcante down — with state and local police, federal authorities, tracking dogs, drones and aircraft all searching for him — is that as resourceful as he was in getting out of the prison, once free he had no clear plan what to do.
There was no friend waiting for him outside to drive him away from the area. He had no food or water readily available.
As images of him walking along the borders of Longwood Gardens a mile or so from the prison became available, it stoked fear among nearby residents that he may try to harm them. It also shed light on the supposition that he did not know exactly where he was.
The perimeter of the search that was laid out daily in press briefings put on by state police Col. George Bivens shifted back and forth along the southern border of U.S. 1 in East Marlborough, Pocopson and Pennsbury townships, but for days it never expanded much beyond a 5-mile-or-so radius from the prison.
It would be after break-ins, a stolen vehicle, desperate attempts at getting help, a stolen firearm, stolen food and two weeks that he would be captured nearly 20 miles away in northern Chester County.
After his capture in September, Cavalcante told interrogators that he had eluded those hunting for him by hiding in the deep underbrush of the area.
He said that there were times that his pursuers walked within a few feet of him as he lay on the ground. He subsisted on creek water and produce found in residents’ backyards.
The search shifted gears on Sept. 9, when police discovered that Cavalcante had slipped through the perimeter, made his way to a dairy farm on Lenape-Unionville Road, and stolen a Ford Transit Van that had keys inside, and made his way to the Phoenixville area, where he had friends.
He made at least two attempts to get people there to assist him, but they refused and called police. The van was later found abandoned.
Sightings of him in the area of South Coventry increased, and on Sept. 10 he broke into a garage and stole a .22 rifle from the homeowner, who confronted him and fired a shot that missed.
“He’s killed two people previously. I would suspect that he’s desperate enough to use that weapon,” Bivens said at the time referring to Brandao and homicide in Brazil.
On Sept. 13, he was caught by a team of law enforcement in a wooded area off Prizer Road in South Coventry, dressed in a Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt he had stolen during his flight.
Cavalcante, who arrived at the Justice Center around noon from the state prison where he is serving his life sentence, did not address Royer except to answer her standard questions about his decision to give up his rights at trial and plead guilty. Fish, in concluding the hearing, asked if his client could return to SCI Greene immediately.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544..
