Danelo Cavalcante escapes from Chester County Prison after being convicted of murdering girlfriend

Danelo Cavalcante, a Montgomery County man who was convicted of first degree murder earlier this month and sentenced to life in prison for the stabbing death of his ex-girlfriend in front of her two young children was reported to have escaped from Chester County Prison on Thursday.

Police search for the convicted criminal has been underway.

The escape was corroborated by district attorney Deb Ryan, who oversaw the prosecution of Danelo Susa Cavalcante and obtained a guilty verdict in less than 20 minutes. She stated that she was en route to the Pocopson prison to evaluate the issue during a phone interview at about 11:45 am.

Cavalcante, a 5-foot-tall, 120-pound man with bushy hair and an unshaven face, was last seen wandering on Pocopson Road, a residential street in a wooded region close to the prison. He was dressed in a grey pair of prison-issued trousers, a white t-shirt and white trainers. According to Ryan, the escape happened at 8 am.

Former street gang member Cavalcante is wanted in his native Brazil for the death of a man who owed him money.

Around 12:10 pm., the county issued an emergency alert about the escape and advised anyone who saw him not to approach.

Ryan claimed that she was currently unaware of any information on Cavalcante's potential escape route. After his sentencing, he was kept at the facility for 30 days so he could consult with his lawyers about whether he would challenge his conviction before being moved to the state prison system. Since his arrest in 2021, he has been kept there without being given a bond.

It is the first escape by such a notorious prisoner from the 700-inmate county-run jail facility in decades. The last notable prison break took place in the 1990s when a prisoner was concealed in a laundry basket.

Following Deborah Brandao's death in 2021, Cavalcante, 34, was found guilty of first-degree murder and possession of a weapon of crime. When she informed him that she had learned of the arrest warrant for him in Brazil and that she meant to inform the police of his whereabouts because he continued to harass her, he became outraged. He had been wanted by the police on a warrant for assaulting her.

On April 18, 2021, he left his King of Prussia home and drove to Brandao's Schuylkill home, where she lived with her children, a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy. He was carrying a knife. He arrived in a car outside the family's residence in the 300 block of Pawling Road.

He eventually grabbed her by the hair, pushed her to the ground, and started repeatedly stabbing her. She died while staring at her kid, who was in the arms of a neighbour who had come to help, and had 37 separate wounds in her abdomen, chest, and throat.

Brandao’s daughter had run from the scene to the neighbor’s apartment, where she screamed, “Help me! Help me! Help me! He’s going to kill my mommy!”

According to a criminal complaint submitted by Chester County Detective David Nieves and Schuylkill Officer Chris Aquilante, Brandao, 33, also a native of Brazil, was declared dead at Paoli Hospital. Cavalcante drove away from the crime site before being helped by two acquaintances who later gave evidence in the case. He was apprehended the next day in Virginia.

Judge Patrick Carmody presided over the trial, which lasted three days. On August 16, the jury returned with its unanimous decision. Cavalcante traumatised the young girl who witnessed the murder twice, first when the stabbing occurred and secondly when she was forced to testify about what she saw, according to Carmody, who handed down Cavalcante's sentence last Tuesday.

“For you to cause (the girl) to relive the murder of her mother was a conscious decision by you,” the judge told him. “It was a selfish decision.” And using the Portuguese words “homem pequeno” so he could understand, Carmody said it was decision of a “small man.”

“You thought of yourself and you did not think of those children,” Carmody said.