Police in Pennsylvania on Tuesday said an escaped killer remains at large after he was spotted walking through botanical gardens in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Authorities said a trail camera captured convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante inside the boundary of Longwood Gardens on Monday night. The 34-year-old killer, originally from Brazil, was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and carrying a backpack and a duffel bag.
The gardens lie beyond the original police perimeter, which was set up after Cavalcante broke out of the Chester County Prison on Aug. 31.
“You’re dealing with someone who is desperate and doesn’t want to get caught,” Lt. Col. George Bevins with Pennsylvania State Police said Tuesday. “He’s a bad guy. He needs to be in custody, and we’re determined to capture him.”
A state trooper spotted Cavalcante on Sunday night in a neighborhood just north of the gardens, but the officer lost the murderer while chasing after him.
The Kennett Consolidated School District canceled classes Tuesday due to Cavalcante being on the loose. The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District said it would operate on a flexible instructional schedule Tuesday.
Police are pulling out all the stops to catch the killer, including playing a message from his mother asking him to turn himself in peacefully.
Cavalcante broke out of prison a week after he was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing his ex-girlfriend Deborah Brandao to death in 2021. A jury convicted him after just 15 minutes of deliberation.
Prosecutors said at his trial that Cavalcante killed the 33-year-old Brandao in front of her two young children.
Cavalcante murdered Brandao after she learned he was wanted on unrelated homicide charges in his native Brazil and that she was going to alert the authorities, prosecutors said.
The killer fled to Virginia soon after, but was later arrested and extradited back to Pennsylvania.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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