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WEST CHESTER — The numbers are adding up for Danelo Sousa Cavalcante, the infamous murder convict and prison escapee.
It has been 164 days since Cavalcante last appeared in a Chester County courtroom, on Aug. 22, at that time in Courtroom 10 on the 6th floor of the county Justice Center. It was then he was given a sentence of life in prison with no parole for the first-degree murder of his former girlfriend, plus another 2 1/2 to five years for possession of an instrument of crime.
On Friday, he will travel the 285 miles from the State Correctional Institution at Greene in western Pennsylvania to the District Court at 916 West Cypress Street outside Kennett Square for his scheduled preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Matthew Seavey. It’s a five-hour trip, and he is expected to be under heavy guard, his past having preceded him.
The matter before Seavey at the proceeding, which may last for several hours, is what Cavalcante is accused of doing in the 13 days between when he escaped from Chester County Prison on Aug. 31 and when he was eventually tracked down by some of the 500 or so law enforcement officers called in to aid in the manhunt and taken into custody on Sept. 13.
The charges include one of escape, and two counts of burglary, two counts of criminal trespass, three counts of receiving stolen property, two counts of theft by unlawful taking, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and illegal possession of a firearm.
As in all criminal cases at the preliminary stage, the prosecution — led by Senior Deputy Attorney General Christopher Phillis — need only prove that a crime was committed and that the defendant, Cavalcante, was likely the person who committed it. The standard of proof is very low, and defense attorneys, from the county Public Defender’s Office, are limited in what questions they can ask of witnesses.
But the prosecution will have to call witnesses, including perhaps the homeowners from Water Glen Drive in Pennsbury, from whom Cavalcante stole a sweatshirt, a shaving razor, an paring knife and a sleeping bag, and Coventryville Road in South Coventry, from whom he allegedly stole a rifle, as well as the owner of a Ford Transit van he is said to have stolen from Bailey’s Dairy Farm in Pocopson.
How long that process takes is unclear.
Anticipating a significant media and public presence for the proceedings, county President Judge John Hall has issued a court order concerning protocol and procedures for Seavey’s court. It forbids cell phones and electronics from the room, except for media members, and sets times for entry — first come, first served for the small courtroom.
“As in all cases, the atmosphere in the courtroom must be quiet, calm, and deliberative,” Hall wrote in his decorum order. “All persons attending the hearing must commit to a serious attitude while attending the court proceeding.”
In the end, there is little chance that Seavey will do anything but hold Cavalcante for trial on all charges. But what that means is that the entire case will be transferred to the Common Pleas Court in West Chester, where it will be assigned to one of the nine judges who preside over criminal cases. Then, the waiting starts.
When his case will come to trial, if that is the way it is resolved, could be quite a few months, if not longer. His murder trial, for example, began more than two years after his arrest for the stabbing death of Deborah Brandao outside her home in Schuylkill.
Nor is the question of what punishment he would face if he is convicted of all, or some, of the charges against him answerable now. There are felonies included that would normally involve years of prison time, and the presiding judge would determine if the sentence time would run alongside or in addition to his current sentence of life without parole.
Chances are, however, that Cavalcante will not soon see the inside of the county prison from which he escaped by “crab-walking” up the outside walls of a prison exercise area. He is expected to be returned to SCI Greene at the conclusion of his hearing Friday to continue serving his life sentence.
There are few people in the county, if not the Delaware Valley, who have not heard Cavalcante’s name or of his exploits over the summer.
For two weeks in August and September, the name of a short, curly haired, Brazilian native seemed to be on the lips of everyone in the media and the local population. The 34-year-old laborer who lived in Montgomery County before his arrest of first-degree murder charges in 2021 had escaped after being convicted at trial and brought fear, frustration and a bit of fascination to the county.
Cavalcante was able to elude capture for days and days as hundreds of law enforcement personnel tried in vain to track him down. Rumors swirled everywhere on social media about how he was able to stay free — that he had been assisted by others, that he was hundreds of miles from the county, that he had fled the country by boat — as authorities gave daily updates about the manhunt.
For those two weeks, Cavalcante eluded capture by subsisting on rainwater and stolen watermelons. The manhunt made international news headlines and photos of his crab-walk up the prison walls appeared hundreds of times. He was seen on surveillance camera footage at the edge of Longwood Gardens, and one resident reported seeing him in his kitchen. The police attempt to cordon him off collapsed after he was able to steal the dairy farm truck that had been left with it keys inside.
He made his way back to northern Chester County, where he had worked for years, and was seen again on door cameras as he tried to get help from friends and co-workers. That failed, and he ultimately abandoned the dairy truck by the side of the road in East Nantmeal.
He was ultimately captured in South Coventry by a squad of police that included a K-9 Officer, Yoda. He had stolen a rifle from a home in the area, and then was tracked down with infrared, heat-seeking technology. When law enforcement officers pulled him from a thicket, he was wearing a Philadelphia Eagles hooded sweatshirt, which the officers peeled off of him.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
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