Danilo Cavalcante, the convicted killer who broke out of prison last summer and led authorities on a 13-day manhunt in Chester County, pleaded guilty Friday to charges of escape, burglary and related offenses from the chase that sparked hysteria in the region.
Cavalcante, 35, a native of Brazil, entered the plea before Chester County Judge Allison Bell Royer, who sentenced him to 15 to 30 years in prison. Cavalcante had already been sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, outside her home in Schuylkill Township in 2021. The new sentence will be served consecutively with his life sentence.
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The guilty plea came nearly a year after Cavalcante shimmied up a pair of walls in a prison exercise yard, ran across the roof and slipped through a perimeter fence lined with razor wire to escape undetected from the facility in Pocopson Township. He made his escape while awaiting his transfer to a state prison only a week after he was sentenced in Brandao's murder.
The ensuing manhunt covered a wide area of Chester County. The search caused school closures and brought a heavy police presence to the communities where witnesses spotted Cavalcante on the run. At one point, surveillance video captured the escaped inmate hiding at Longwood Gardens, the sprawling botanical preserve in East Marlborough Township.
While on the loose, authorities said Cavalcante stole a van, rifle, knife, clothing and other items from homes in various Chester County towns. When he took the loaded rifle from a garage in East Nantmeal Township, the property owner fired back at him with a pistol. Days later, he was captured in a wooded area behind a business in South Coventry Township, about 30 miles from the county prison.
Cavalcante faced a slew of charges stemming from the manhunt in a case that was handled by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. He entered Friday's guilty plea for charges including escape, burglary, trespassing, firearms offenses and related crimes.
“This defendant was already serving a life sentence when he escaped and put an entire community on edge as he continued to commit more crimes while on the run,” Attorney General Michelle Henry said. “I commend the immense effort of the hundreds of troopers, officers, and agents who worked tirelessly to bring him into custody.”
In the year since Cavalcante's escape, the Chester County Prison has undertaken measures to further secure the facility with additional cameras, guards, fencing and new protocols for monitoring high-risk inmates. Cavalcante had used the same method to escape the prison as another inmate who broke out several months earlier and was captured on a nearby property.
Since Cavalcante was captured last September, he has been held at the maximum security State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Montgomery County.