With a manhunt for an escaped murderer going on nearby, visitors flocked to Kennett Square Mushroom Festival

A 10-day manhunt for an escaped inmate has drawn international media attention and hundreds of law enforcement officers to an otherwise pastoral corner of Chester County.

But the police activity did not discourage crowds Saturday drawn to Kennett Square’s 38th Annual Mushroom Festival — just a stone’s throw from the eight-square-mile search perimeter for convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante.

The weekend festival is pitched around the Brandywine Creek Valley’s reputation as “Mushroom Capital of the World” — the region produces roughly half of the U.S. mushroom yields each year — and features about 200 vendors and a range of fungal delights from mushroom cheesesteaks and risotto to mushroom cappuccino and ice cream.

But this year, the festivities, held through Sunday along the borough’s historic State Street, take place against the dramatic backdrop of the search for a 34-year-old Brazilian national who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his ex-girlfriend a week before he scaled a wall in one of Chester County Prison’s exercise yards and slipped away on Aug. 31.

Cavalcante, who stabbed to death Deborah Brandao in front of her children in 2021 and is also wanted by authorities in his home country for allegedly shooting a man to death in 2017 in Tocantins, has since been sighted near Longwood Gardens, a storied botanical garden on the outskirts of Kennett Square.

For Brett Hulbert, 60, the chef and co-owner of Portobello’s, a State Street restaurant, the Saturday crowds drawn to the mushroom festival were a godsend after a week that saw regional tourism dry up with the closure for much of the week of the gardens, which typically bring some 1.6 million visitors to the area each year.

“We’re so tied in with Longwood Gardens. When they do well, we do well — the borough of Kennett Square. So if they’re closed, you’re going to get a lot less tourism,” he said. “And it’s been dead all week.”

But as festivalgoers lined up for cups of mushroom soup, Hulbert said the crowd looked similar to those in years past.

“Everyone is worried about the escaped convict,” he said. “But today has been a fantastic day.”

» READ MORE: Danelo Cavalcante manhunt recalls a similar search in Chester County for another notorious killer

The Rev. Tim Johnson, 48, a local priest, said he’d volunteered to staff a festival information booth through the Kennett Square Rotary Club. He said the event “brought the larger community together” through “a celebration of mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms are an integral part of our culture and economy and history here in Kennett Square,” he said.

He agreed the search for Cavalcante had not seemed to dampen turnout.

“I don’t have the sense that it’s impacting attendance,” he said. “It’s been pretty good. So far, it looks like people are coming out.”

Patrick and Nora Devlin, both 33, are Drexel Hill residents who grew up near Kennett Square and have been coming to the festival for 25 years.

“We just like all the mushroom stuff. It’s cute,” she said. “I like the mushroom soup ice cream, because I’m crazy.”

Like others, she had heard about the search, but wasn’t concerned enough to change her plans.

“We thought well, Longwood is close to Kennett, but [police] said they set up a perimeter, so we’re going to trust that they did that,” she said, adding they saw a police cordon on their way into town.

Barb Graettinger had planned for months to travel from Dallas, Texas, to attend the festival with her brother, Jim, who lives in Baltimore. Self-described “mushroom fans” bedecked in matching toadstool hats, the pair said they had heard about the manhunt on national news, but were undeterred.

“Well, we’re not going to Longwood Gardens,” she said with a laugh.

Meanwhile, the fugitive hunt has grown to some 400 police officers.

The search area moved west from Pennsbury, due south of the correctional facility Cavalcante escaped from in Pocopson Township, to focus on the area around Longwood Gardens, after the fugitive was spotted multiple times on trail cameras in the area.

A Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson Saturday said there had been two more confirmed sightings of Cavalcante within the search area — which runs from Conservatory Road to State Route 52, and from Street Road to Longwood Road — on Friday.

Other than that, state police said only that the search was still ongoing. They had planned no additional briefings — unless, presumably, Calvalcante was apprehended.