Due to the ongoing search for a convicted murderer who escaped a Chester County jail, two school districts in Pennsylvania canceled classes on Tuesday.
Pennsylvania State Policeman George Bivens (Maj. Lt. Col.) said on Tuesday that a private trail camera had caught Danelo Souza Cavalcante, 34, squeezing through a wooded area at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square on Monday night. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a duffle-sling backpack.
Earlier on Thursday, Cavalcante is said to have broken out of Chester State Prison. He is suspected to be a Brazilian national unlawfully residing in the United States and is sought for murder in Brazil.
Residents and school authorities were informed of the search area expansion to the south, and Bivens emphasized the need to “maintain pressure on him” as they continued the search.
School closures were declared “out of an abundance of caution” on Tuesday by the School Districts of Kennett Consolidated and Unionville-Chadds Ford (UCF) as the search continued.
UCF wrote in a notification on its website that the district received information that the status of the issue with the fugitive prisoner had changed. Schools and administrative buildings closed, and they announced the day would be treated as a Flexible Instructional Day,
Authorities said Cavalcante fled while waiting to be transferred to a state jail after being given a life sentence last month for murdering his ex-girlfriend in front of her children. How he managed to get away is still a mystery.
Multiple genuine sightings of Cavalcante have been reported between the junction of Route 926 and 52 in Pocopson Township, north on 52 to Parker’s Mill Road, Southeast to Route 926, and west to the intersection of Routes 926 and 52.
The escaped murderer was seen on a home video camera in the 1800 block of Lenape Road at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, around 1.5 miles from the jail.
To encourage Cavalcante’s surrender, authorities broadcast his mother’s recorded Portuguese message from a helicopter.
The suspect’s mother recorded a message pleading for her son to surrender quietly, Bivens told reporters on Monday. It intends to be disseminated so that he will surrender peacefully.
