Killer shot at by homeowner, then flees after stealing rifle
Troopers say they found prison shoes, clothing belonging to Cavalcante
EAST MARLBOROUGH — Escaped killer Danelo Cavalcante stole a .22 caliber rifle and ammunition from a South Coventry Township homeowner’s garage Monday night and is now considered armed and extremely dangerous, law enforcement authorities said at a news conference Tuesday at the Po-Mar-Lin Fire Company headquarters in Unionville.
The manhunt for Cavalcante continues in the northern part of
Chester County with upward of 450 law enforcement officers in the push to capture the convicted murderer, state police Lt. Col. George Bivens said.
Police recovered clothing that belonged to Cavalcante and reported that he had stolen a pair of work boots from the porch of a nearby residence, discarding his prison-issued sneakers.
Bivens said the homeowner on Coventryville Road, where Cavalcante stole the rifle, fired several shots from a pistol at the escapee. It was unknown if Cavalcante had been hit by any of the bullets, but Bivens said he had no reason to believe that Cavalcante was.
The latest developments in the ongoing manhunt prompted Owen
J. Roberts School District to close all its schools and offices for the day. Pottstown School District also is keeping students indoors, and the local magisterial district court, near the house where the rifle was stolen, announced that it would be closed because of the police activity.
Bivens, who was joined at the briefing by District Attorney Deb Ryan, county detectives Chief Dave Sassa, and representatives of the FBI and the U.S. Marshal’s Service, took about 15 minutes of questions from reporters but bristled when one asked him to defend the manhunt operation that has thus far failed to capture the Brazilian native.
“What has gone wrong here?” the reporter asked. “Have you underestimated him?”
“Sir, I don’t know why you would think something has gone wrong,” said Bivens, a veteran trooper who has conducted high-profile briefings in other statewide emergencies. “Law enforcement people have done an amazing job, tracking and locating him, the proverbial needle in a haystack. I’m very proud of the work they have done and continue to do. Nothing has gone wrong. Our agencies are all working very well together, and I believe we will be successful in the long run.”
Another law enforcement member familiar with the manhunt spoke on condition of anonymity to answer whether there was frustration at the manhunt’s progress.
“It’s a distance run, not a sprint,” the person said. “We will get him.”
Bevins urged caution among residents of the northern part of the county, where the manhunt transitioned to over the weekend as Cavalcante stole a delivery van and made his way to Phoenixville and East Pikeland, an area in which he lived before his arrest in the murder of his former girlfriend in April 2021.
“We consider him dangerous, we consider him desperate,” Bivens said, advising residents once again to lock and secure their homes, their outbuildings and their cars, and to call 911 if they see him or anything suspicious.
“All this does is confirm for us that he has a weapon,” he said. “He’s killed two people previously. I would expect that he is desperate enough to use that weapon.”
The activity Monday began around 8 p.m., Bivens said, when a motorist west of Route 100 in East Nantmeal Township, a few miles from where the van he had stolen from a dairy farm in Pocopson Township on Saturday was found abandoned Sunday, reported seeing a man crouching by the side of the road. When she turned her car around to check the area, the man had disappeared. She contacted authorities.
“We had a large number of troopers already in the area and utilized them to form a perimeter around that area,” Bivens told reporters. “A Border Patrol tactical team was also in the vicinity and went directly to the location of the sighting. They observed footprints in some mud, which were identified as the prison sneakers given to Cavalcante.”
A track was initiated and shortly thereafter both of his prison shoes were found. Bivens said a resident called and reported that a pair of work boots had been stolen from a porch at her residence. Police found the sneakers soon after.
The tracking of Cavalcante continued in a northerly direction, and at 10:10 p.m. a call was received from a resident on Coventryville Road near the French Creek Elementary School. The homeowner said he had encountered a short Hispanic male, who was shirtless and wearing dark pants, in his garage. The man grabbed a .22 rifle that was leaning in the corner of the garage and fled, authorities said.
The homeowner told police that he drew a pistol he had with him and fired several shots in his direction as he ran.
When they responded to the home, a green sweatshirt and white T-shirt believed to belong to Cavalcante were discovered near the edge of the driveway, Bivens said.
The trooper said he believed Cavalcante had simply stumbled on the home and may have thought of hiding there before being confronted by the homeowner and finding the gun.
The new perimeter of the search, which includes as many as 500 local, state and federal personnel, was expanded and a tactical search began. Route 100 above Ludwigs Corner was closed, as was Route 23 west of Bucktown.
Bivens said that he believed that Cavalcante is familiar with the area, and another law enforcement official said he is thought to have worked there in the past.
“I think he is just trying to survive and avoid being captured at this point,” Bivens said. “I am not going to comment on whatever assistance he may or may not have received. What I will tell you is that at this point I believe he is beyond assistance. He is in that perimeter, and we will actively hunt until we find him.”
The terrain that trackers are facing is similar to that which they encountered in the area around the Chester County Prison in the first days of the manhunt, Bivens said. It is wooded, and hilly and has several creeks running through it.
He estimated the area being searched Monday and Tuesday was about 8 or 10 square miles, from Route 23 in the north to Fairview Road in the south.
“It’s not a matter of just charging into the woods and saying, ‘He’s that-a-way,’ ” Bivens said. “It’s a matter of trying to track him methodically through the woods. We don’t have the luxury of just charging up a trail and going, ‘That’s the direction he went.’ ”
The background
Cavalcante, 34, who lived in Montgomery County before his arrest on murder charges, was convicted of first-degree murder in August for the April 2021 stabbing death of his former girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, outside her home in Schuylkill Township.
She had learned that he was wanted on a murder warrant in his native Brazil and threatened to expose him to the police if he did not stop stalking her. She had twice before reported that he had been violent with her, but he was never arrested in those cases.
According to reports, prosecutors in Tocantins state in Brazil have confirmed that a criminal case attributes “the crime of double qualified homicide to the defendant Danilo Souza Cavalcante.” Authorities allege that Válter Júnior Moreira dos Reis was killed in 2017 in Figueirópolis over a debt he owed Cavalcante over the repair of a vehicle. Cavalcante went into hiding after the killing, making his way to Puerto Rico, and entering the United States illegally in 2018.
He had been sentenced to life in prison without parole following his conviction and was awaiting transfer to the state prison system when he escaped Aug. 31.