Danelo Cavalcante update: Pennsylvania manhunt widens and schools shutter five days after prison escape

6 Sep 2023 • 1:30 PM MYT
The Independent
The Independent

The world’s most free-thinking newspaper

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The manhunt for convicted killer Danelo Cavalcante has now widened and local schools have been shuttered after he was spotted on trail camera footage breaking past a police perimeter on Monday night.

Cavalcante, 34, escaped from Chester County Prison, Pennsylvania, on Thursday days after he was sentenced to life without parole for stabbing his ex-girlfriend Deborah Brandão, 31, to death in front of her two small children. He is also wanted for a 2017 murder in Brazil.

During the six-day search for the escaped prisoner, multiple sightings have been reported with law enforcement setting up a two-mile perimeter around a wooded area where he was believed to be holed up.

On Monday, officials then broadcast a message from the killer’s mother urging her son to surrender.

But, in a morning update on Tuesday, police revealed that Cavalcante had been caught on camera managing to sneak past the perimeter the night before. As a result, police have now expanded the police perimeter and shuttered the Kennett Consolidated School District in Chester Count “out of abundance of caution”.

Members of the public have been urged to secure their homes, outbuildings and vehicles from the dangerous killer.