Credit: U.S. Department of Justice
Riding is usually a good way to get away from the worrisome issues that fill the news channels, but sometimes danger comes to your own backyard and your barn. In parts of Chester County PA, trailer drivers had to navigate around roadblocks to get to horse shows, trail rides were a potentially dangerous activity and even entering a barn required caution since no one knew where an escaped murderer might be hiding.
On Aug. 31, Danelo Cavalcante, sentenced to life in prison, made his escape from Chester County Prison. It was big news locally, but before the end of the first day it was spreading everywhere. The way he escaped, crab-walking upward between prison walls, was caught on tape and has been watched around the world. Many were more amazed by how he managed to make his break for freedom than they were concerned about the fact that a convicted murderer was on the run.
Residents in the area of the prison were concerned from the beginning of the drama. For them it was more than an amazing video. Cavalcante had been convicted of the April 2021 slaying of his ex-girlfriend in front of her children and has been implicated in another murder in his native Brazil. This was someone capable of killing, known to be loose in the normally quiet pastoral area of Pennsylvania’s horse country.
For those unfamiliar with Chester County, the prison is located in Pocopson Township, right in the heart of horse country. Racecourses for the Willowdale Steeplechase and the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup are 5.1 miles and 12 miles away respectively. Plantation Field’s combined training course is just 7 miles from the prison. Dozens of racing, eventing, hunting, show and breeding stables are withing easy reach of the prison as are scores of private stables.
Although this is considered a suburb of Philadelphia, it is rural and heavily wooded in areas, and Amish owned farms are not uncommon. At this time of year, cornfields tower well above the 5’ tall Cavalcante who eventually told the police he survived for two weeks on creek water and watermelon found growing in a field.
For eight days, Cavalcante remained in hiding in the general area, with a few sightings each day, in person, or more often on trail cameras or residential surveillance cameras. Schools within the search area were closed and Longwood Botanical Gardens, just 3.7 miles from the prison, where he was spotted several times, also closed to visitors for safety concerns.
Residents were cautioned to lock their doors and their car doors. In much of this rural area the reminder was necessary. Not everyone heeded the warning.
On September 9, the tenth day after the escape, Cavalcante stole a van from a dairy farm – the keys had been left inside the vehicle. He now moved 20 to 25 miles north to East Pikeland Township and the small city of Phoenixville where he reportedly was looking for friends who might help him. Fortunately, he found no one.
The van ran out of gas and was abandoned behind a barn on September 10th, in East Nantmeal Township. The hunt for Cavalcante became even more serious the next day, September 11, when he stole a pair of work boots from a residential porch and took a .22 rifle from a garage. He was now considered to be armed and extremely dangerous.
Horizon Hill Farm, operated by Elizabeth Lubrano Haines, is in the Glenmoore area, south of the capture area. An 80-acre facility, Elizabeth was left with no help once it was learned that Cavalcante was now armed. No one felt safe coming to work or traveling in the area.
Elizabeth took her three small children to stay at her mother Sara Jane Lubrano’s house, returning to the farm only when her husband Tyler was there, to feed the fifteen horses. She put as many as possible on full time pasture to cut down on stall cleaning, and Tyler would check to make sure the area was clear before Elizabeth would feed.
“It looked like he (Cavalcante) stayed in wooded areas so she had the kids here,” Sara Jane Lubrano said. “Getting in there to do the required work was getting pretty stressful. No one knew where he was, that was the scary part. Even at my house we kept the kids inside.”
The capture came on day fourteen when Cavalcante was captured with the help of aircraft, thermal imaging cameras, as well as officers from all types of law enforcement. It was a border patrol strike force unit and a Malinois police dog named Yoda that first took him into custody.
Cavalcante was found in the vicinity of R. E. Little’s tractor dealership in northern Chester County. An equestrian landmark in the area is the Ludwigs Corner Horse Show grounds, just 4.3 miles from the eventual capture site.
When the hunt was focused in the northern Chester County area, the Ludwig’s Corner Fire House adjacent to the showgrounds, was one of the staging sites for officers.
Fortunately, at the time of the annual Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show, September 2 through 4, the focus of the manhunt was still to the south where Cavalcante had lingered after his initial escape. There was some concern, however, because the two large tents with 154 temporary stalls remained on the grounds after the event. This was just one of the potential hiding places that police checked.
Following Cavalcante ‘s capture, life is returning to normal, but people are still cautious.
Early on in the manhunt it was revealed that there had been another escape attempt using the same crab-walk climb in May. In that case the prisoner was spotted on a rooftop and captured before he reached the rows of razor wire that top the fence around the prison grounds. Cavalcante was not spotted on the roof, and the corrections officer on duty in the observation tower at the time has been dismissed.
And on September 17, following a riot, nine juveniles escaped from a juvenile detention center in Morgantown, Berks County, adjacent to the Chester County and Lancaster County borders. All were back in custody by midday on September 18.