Danelo Cavalcante eludes capture after shaving, stealing a van and fleeing to northern Chester County

Escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcante managed to elude hundreds of law enforcement officers searching a wooded area near Longwood Gardens, then stole a nearby dairy truck and surfaced over the weekend in surveillance footage in the Phoenixville area — on the other side of Chester County about 25 miles away.

Cavalcante, 34, who broke out of the Chester County Prison on Aug. 31 by scaling a wall in an exercise yard, appeared Saturday night on a doorbell camera in East Pikeland Township, having changed into new clothes and shaved his beard and mustache along the way.

>>>Live coverage: Search continues Monday for escaped convict Danelo Cavalcante

Police have been tracking him for 11 days.

“He is a very determined individual,” Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said at a Sunday afternoon news conference to address a slew of developments over the preceding 24 hours.

In the Ring cam video, Cavalcante asks a former coworker for help, police said. He then appeared at the home of another former coworker in the Phoenixville area Saturday night, who also wasn’t home. Both stops led to police being contacted.

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In still photos distributed by police, Cavalcante is seen without the mustache and beard he had in prison. And instead of the prison-issued white T-shirt, he was wearing a yellow or green hooded sweatshirt, a black baseball-style hat, green prison pants, and white shoes, police said.

Cavalcante drove north in a 2020 white Ford van that he’d stolen from Baily’s Dairy near Longwood Gardens. The keys had been left in the van, police said. Law enforcement agencies nationwide were alerted, but Cavalcante later ditched the van, most likely because he ran out of gas.

Asked how Cavalcante escaped the initial search perimeter and made it to the dairy farm, Bivens said a number of factors could have played a role, including rugged terrain, darkness, inclement weather, drainage ditches, and underground tunnels.

“I don’t know how he got over there,” Bivens said. “I wish I did. ... No perimeter is 100% secure. We do the best we can. Most times we’re able to secure it adequately.”

Cavalcante, a Brazilian national, was sentenced last month to life in prison for murdering his ex-girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, 33, in front of her children in 2021. He escaped a week later, which resulted in the firing Thursday of a corrections officer who had been on duty in a guard tower and carrying a personal cell phone in violation of prison regulations, a source told The Inquirer.

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In heading toward Phoenixville over the weekend, Cavalcante returned to familiar territory. Both he and Brandao’s family have ties to the area.

After killing Brandao outside her Schuylkill Township home in August 2021, stabbing her more than 30 times, Cavalcante received help from nearby friends. He parked a rented construction trailer at a lot in Phoenixville, cleaned himself up, changed his clothes, and then drove south to Virginia. He was arrested there hours after the stabbing.

At his trial, two Cavalcante friends testified that they helped wash Brandao’s blood off his hands and gave Cavalcante a change of clothes and put gas in his car. They testified against him in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

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Bivens confirmed Sunday that Cavalcante’s sister, Eleni, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and faces deportation, citing “some immigration issues.” He didn’t say if the arrest had anything to do with helping Cavalcante after his escape from prison last month. Eleni Cavalcante has connections to the two friends who had helped her brother flee the area after killing Brandao. One of them, Francisco Lima, had testified that before Cavalcante left for Virginia, he gave him a bag of money to deliver to his sister.

Late Sunday morning, state police said leads had emerged that indicated Cavalcante was no longer around Phoenixville. Sharpshooters were later set up in a field near where the van was discovered, in East Nantmeal Township, about 20 minutes west of Phoenixville, according to a law enforcement source.

Bivens said he believes Cavalcante is still in Pennsylvania.

“This is a minor setback,” he said. “We’ll get him. It’s a matter of time.”

Before Saturday night, the last reported sightings of Cavalcante were two on Friday within an eight-square-mile search area near Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square. Phoenixville is nearly 30 miles north, between King of Prussia and Pottstown and just off the busy east-west Route 422.

In a news conference Friday, Bivens had said he believed a search involving nearly 400 law enforcement officers around the Longwood Gardens area had successfully contained Cavalcante to those eight square miles. The search had entered its 10th day Saturday using air support, mounted patrols, and other resources to supplement the officers on the ground.

Longwood Gardens posted a message on its website Sunday, saying it planned to reopen Wednesday. With the exception of a couple of days, the popular botanical gardens have been closed since Labor Day weekend after Cavalcante was spotted several times on trail cameras on the property.

Anyone with information on Cavalcante’s whereabouts is urged to call 911 or the State Police tip line at 717-562-2987.

Cavalcante is considered extremely dangerous. In addition to stabbing Brandao to death, he is also wanted by authorities in Brazil for allegedly shooting a man to death in 2017 in the state of Tocantins.

Staff writer Diane Mastrull contributed to this article.