Convicted killer who spent 2 weeks on the run in Pennsylvania pleads guilty to escape charges

A convicted killer captured last year after two weeks on the run in southeastern Pennsylvania’s rolling farmlands has pleaded guilty to escape and burglary charges.

Danilo Cavalcante, 35, was sentenced immediately afterward to serve 15 to 30 years in addition to his life sentence without parole for killing his ex-girlfriend. He chose not to speak in court.

Cavalcante, a native of Brazil, escaped from a Chester County lockup while waiting to be transferred to state prison to serve a life sentence for killing his ex-girlfriend. He escaped by clambering up between two walls in a jail exercise yard, then climbing over razor wire and jumping from a roof.

Cavalcante had been convicted of killing ex-girlfriend Deborah Brandao to stop her from telling police about charges against him in connection with a 2017 slaying in Brazil.

While on the run, he stole a truck from a dairy farm after finding the keys inside and survived by stealing food, clothing and other items from people’s homes.

With residents of Chester County increasingly on edge, one homeowner found the fugitive in his open garage stealing a rifle and fired several shots at him with a pistol. But they seemingly missed Cavalcante, who remained on the run for two more days before he was captured early one morning by searchers using a plane’s thermal imaging from above and K-9 search dogs on the ground.

Cavalcante, a native of Brazil speaking through a Portuguese interpreter, told the judge his education had stopped in the fourth grade.

“You’re still a young man,” County Judge Allison Bell Royer told Cavalcante, as she advised him to figure out a way to make something of his life even in prison.

“Maybe someday be a mentor to somebody for a purpose that’s good,” she said. “It is never too late.”

Lonny Fish, his defense lawyer, said Cavalcante had swiftly agreed to plead guilty to the charges. His plea came a day before the one-year anniversary of his escape, which left many people across the Philadelphia region in fear, especially as Cavalcante entered at least two homes in search of provisions.

“I don’t think he understood the circus that he caused,” Fish said.