Update: Danelo Cavalcante, convicted murderer who escaped ...

POCOPSON — Danelo Sousa Cavalcante, the Montgomery County convicted murderer who escaped from Chester County Prison on Thursday — leading to a heavy manhunt in the area around the prison south of West Chester — remains at large Friday morning.

The Chester County commissioners and U.S. Marshals are offering a $10,000 reward, $5,000 each, for information leading to the capture of Cavalcante, who was last seen walking along a rural road not far from the prison where he had been held since his arrest on murder charges in 2021, and where he was awaiting transport to a state prison to begin serving his life sentence for the stabbing death of his former girlfriend.

Despite the all-out efforts of law enforcement to track the Brazilian native down following his brazen escape, he had not been taken into custody after more than 24 hours after he was last accounted for.

“All that is being released is that Law enforcement is doing everything they can to locate him,” said a spokeswoman for the Chester County District Attorney’s Office, Dana Moore. “It is being asked that if anyone knows any information to please call 911 immediately or contact the U.S. Marshals Service at 1-877-WANTED2 or online at usmarshals.gov/tips.”

As the sun rose Friday morning over the prison facility on Wawaset Road in Pocopson — a short drive from popular tourist destination Longwood Gardens and adjacent to the county’s senior facility, Pocopson Home — the visual police presence from the day before had diminished, although state police patrol cars could be seen entering and exiting the prison grounds.

Visitors to the prison were restricted from entering, and an attempt to interview Acting Warden Howard Holland about the escape was turned away at the prison gate.

At a press conference held Thursday by District Attorney Deb Ryan, who had prosecuted Cavalcante at his trial last month and secured a swift conviction on first-degree murder charges, Holland said he would not answer any questions about the “how and why” of the escape.

“That’s under investigation,” Holland said as Ryan and two county commissioners, Marian Moskowitz and Josh Maxwell, as well as state police and Chester County DetectIve officials, looked on. “What I can do is assure all the residents and everyone around us that as soon as we found out about this we began our protocols (for escapes).

“We did an immediate search of the area, and we sounded all our audible signals to indicate there was a problem,” Holland said. He said the prison was on lockdown following the escape.

Officials are asking anyone who might see Cavalcante or have information on his whereabouts to call 911 immediately and not approach him, as he is considered extremely dangerous.

A short and slight man  — 5 feet tall and 120 pounds — with bushy hair and an unshaven face, Cavalcante was last seen walking on Pocopson Road — a wooded area with secluded homes near the prison — around 9:40 a.m.He was wearing a white t-shirt, green prison-issued pants, and white sneakers. Ryan said the escape occurred around 8:50 a.m.

Wanted in his native Brazil for the 2017 murder of a man who owed him money, Cavalcante, a former street gang member, speaks Portuguese and English. He was being held at the facility after his sentencing for 30 days so he could converse with his attorneys about whether he would file an appeal of his conviction before being transferred to the state prison system.

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Cavalcante, 34, of King of Prussia, was found guilty of first-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime for the 2021 death of his ex-girlfriend, Deborah Brandao. He had been wanted by police on a warrant for assaulting her but became enraged when she told him she had learned of the warrant for his arrest in Brazil for murder and planned to alert police to his whereabouts because he continued to harass her.

On April 18, 2021, he drove from his home in King of Prussia armed with a knife to Brandao’s home in Schuylkill that she shared with her children, a 7-year-old Girl and a 4-year-old boy. The family was outside of the home in the 300 block of Pawling Road when he pulled up in his car and began arguing with Brandao.

At some point, he grabbed her by the hair, threw her to the ground, and began stabbing her repeatedly. There were 37 individual wounds in her abdomen, chest and throat, and she died looking at her son, who was gathered in the arms of a neighbor who came to help.

Brandao’s daughter had run from the scene to the neighbor’s apartment, where she screamed, “Help me! Help me! Help me! He’s going to kill my mommy!”

Brandao, 33, also a native of Brazil, was pronounced dead at Paoli Hospital, according to a criminal complaint filed by Chester County Detective David Nieves and Schuylkill Officer Chris Aquilante. Cavalcante had fled the scene in a car and was arrested the next day in Virginia after getting help from two friends who testified in the case.

To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.