Danelo Cavalcante manhunt recalls a similar search in Chester County for another notorious killer

The ongoing manhunt for Danelo Cavalcante, who escaped Aug. 31 from Chester County Prison, brings to mind the search for Norman Johnston, another convicted murderer who escaped from a state prison in August 1999 and eluded authorities for 18 days before he was finally caught about a mile from Longwood Gardens.

The manhunt for Johnston captivated the public imagination because he and his two older brothers were leaders of a notorious Chester County crime gang that inspired the 1986 movie At Close Range starring Christopher Walken and Sean Penn.

While Norman Johnston’s 18-day run caused fear among Chester County residents, his capture revealed a 49-year-old man who was desperately lost in a strange new technological world after nearly two decades behind bars.

“His escape appeared to have been meticulously planned. But when he returned to Chester County, he spent his time running — mostly scared and sometimes confused — through parched fields and twisting back roads of a world much changed from the days when it was Johnston family turf,” an Inquirer article said after his capture.

That meticulous planning started with an escape featuring a comical ploy that seemed lifted straight from an old movie or TV show.

At the state prison in Huntingdon County near Altoona, Johnston used a four-inch saw blade to cut out of his cell, squeezed himself through a window, ran across a yard, and then cut through two outside fences.

To fool the guards, he left behind a dummy in his cell bed.

“It’s an incredible dummy, complete with human hair,” Martin F. Horn, secretary of the state Department of Corrections, said at the time.

Once out, he quickly stole a 1966 Land Rover — one of four vehicles he would steal and none made later than 1980, the year he was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences.

Old cars were the “only thing he knew how to hot-wire,” Scott Duffey, a former FBI agent involved in the Johnston manhunt, recalled in an interview this week.

Nonetheless, he had wheels and drove straight to Chester County. And that caused alarm.

The big question was: “Why is he coming back to the only place where people would recognize him,” Joseph Carroll III, a former Chester County district attorney, said in an interview this past week.

Maybe he was out for revenge, some were thinking. Others figured he may have had buried loot from his extremely lucrative days as a thief.

The Johnston Gang ran a multimillion-dollar ring that stole and fenced everything from bootlegged 8-track tapes to heavy farm equipment. They were responsible for a $28,000 heist at Longwood Gardens.

The gang specialized in John Deere tractors, and at one point more John Deere tractors were stolen by Johnston Gang members than were stolen in the rest of the nation combined, said Bruce Mowday, a former reporter with the Daily Local News in Chester County and author of the book Jailing the Johnston Gang: Bringing Serial Murderers to Justice.

Johnston apparently tried to contact some relatives, but even with his stolen cars, he never traveled beyond Chester County, northern Maryland, and Delaware, which encompassed the Johnston brothers’ old stomping grounds.

Police said he never bothered to steal ATM cards or cell phones, probably because he didn’t know how to use them. Instead, he carried a bunch of quarters he probably stole from a coin-operated machine and used them for pay phones.

Johnston didn’t know how to operate a self-serve gasoline pump and had to ask a convenience store attendant for help. He probably figured he could fill up and drive off without paying, like he did back in the 1970s, said Duffey, the former FBI agent who is now codirector of Wilmington University’s Criminal Justice Institute.

“You could steal gas back then. You can’t steal gas now,” Duffey said.

After he was caught, Johnston told investigators that he usually hid out during the day and ventured out at night. He said he read newspapers and listened to KYW radio to keep informed about his manhunt.

After his capture, KYW actually touted Johnston’s endorsement for a cheeky on-air promo.

For some, Johnston’s 18-day run was more of a circus than a terrorizing event.

“Some residents kept their guns at the ready,” The Inquirer noted. “But to others, Johnston became something of a folk curiosity. T-shirts appeared saying ‘I am not Norman Johnston’ on the front and ‘Don’t Shoot’ on the back. Bumper stickers proclaimed, ‘I saw Norman Johnston and Elvis at the WaWa.’ “

Part of the public view of Johnston was influenced by the movie At Close Range, which was inspired by the Johnston Gang but did not hew close to actual facts.

“They were a lot worse than what the movie portrayed, and they weren’t portrayed that nice in the movie,” said Mowday, who also wrote the book, Small Town Cops in the Crosshairs: The 1972 Sniper Slayings of Policemen William Davis and Richard Posey, about the murders of two Kennett Square police officers by a member of the Johnston Gang.

The leader of the gang was Bruce Johnston Sr., who was convicted of six murders, including that of his 18-year-old stepson, James Johnston, and 15-year-old Robin Miller, who was the girlfriend of Bruce Johnston Jr.

Fearing that Bruce Jr. would turn and cooperate with authorities, Johnston Sr. arranged for brothers David and Norman to ambush his son. Bruce Jr. was shot eight or nine times but survived. Robin Miller was with Bruce Jr. and was only shot once, but she died.

“They were absolutely ruthless,” said Carroll, who worked as a young prosecutor on the case and later served as district attorney from 2002 to 2012.

Twice, Johnston was nearly caught by law enforcement, but he was able to get away. But life on the lam was taking a toll on Johnston. He had been living in the woods and when he was caught, the only food he was carrying were two boxes of cereal.

Johnston’s run came to an end when the fourth vehicle that he stole, a green 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass, was spotted by a Pennsylvania State Police trooper. Johnston tried to flee, but crashed the Oldsmobile in a cul-de-sac of a residential development in Pennsbury Township that didn’t exist before Johnston was sent to prison.

Johnston fled on foot and disappeared into the darkness. Some residents later reported to police that they heard a suspicious thump under their porch. State police responded and were interviewing the residents when Johnston walked into view, apparently unaware that the troopers were right there.

“That’s not a neighbor. That’s him,” Rick Mercurio, one of the residents, told the troopers. “That’s Johnston. That’s your man.”

Johnston, gaunt and hollow-eyed, tried to run but was cornered and gave up. He was captured about a mile from where he helped to kill and bury three junior members of his gang.

Duffey, the FBI agent, heard the radio call that Johnston was in custody and went to see for himself. Johnston was seated in the back of a state police car.

“I think he was tired and hungry,” Duffey said. Life on the outside “wasn’t working out the way he thought.”

Today, Johnston, now 73, is serving his sentence at the state prison in Forest County in a remote section of northwestern Pennsylvania. His brothers, Bruce Sr. and David, have since died.

During his run, authorities got Johnston’s mother, Louise, to make a televised appeal for her son to give up before he was killed — similar to the recorded message police have played from loudspeakers from Cavalcante’s mother.

If it appears that authorities are struggling to find Cavalcante, Carroll said it is understandable.

“There are lots of places to hide” in Chester County, he said. “It took over two weeks to find Norman.”