POCOPSON — The sun rose at 6:29 a.m. over the Chester County Prison on Aug. 31, 2023.
The weather was cool for a summer day, with temperatures in the low 60s, when convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante made his way from his secure lockup in the prison to an exercise yard outside the walls with a line of other inmates.
Dressed in a white T-shirt, green prison pants and standard-issue sneakers, Cavalcante carried with him a small stack of towels. And while other inmates played a morning game of basketball, the short, bushy-haired Brazilian sneaked to an area between two red-bricked walls and made his infamous break to freedom.
At around 8:59 a.m. he put his hands on one wall and his feet on the opposite, and began crab-walking upward until he reached a ledge under an opening below the roof. He crawled through the narrow hole and hopped onto the roof of the prison, stayed there for a time, and ultimately jumped down to the prison yard.
He was next seen around 9:50 a.m. walking on Wawaset Road not far from the prison. When corrections officers noticed that he had not made his way back to his cell, it began one of the largest manhunts for an escaped prison inmate in state history, a blemish on the prison’s reputation across the state, and focused the eyes of the country and the world on the wooded hills of bucolic Chester County.
Cavalcante — who murdered his estranged girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, in front of her young children at her Schuylkill Township home in 2021 after she threatened to expose his flight from their native country for the murder of another man — would eventually be captured two weeks later on the morning of Sept. 13, 2023, after having eluded more than 500 law enforcement officers for days and making his way from the area not far from the prison to northern Chester County.
He was found in woods near Prizer Road in South Coventry Township and taken into custody wearing an Eagles sweatshirt.
Saturday marks the first anniversary of Cavalcante’s escape. In the intervening months, the fear, anxiety and anger that his brazen escape caused county residents has largely subsided, and the prison has increased the security whose lapses were blamed for his escape.
Cavalcante, 35, who lived in northern Chester County and Montgomery County after coming to the United States illegally in the mid-2010s, is housed at a maximum security prison, State Correctional Institution at Greene, awaiting trial on the charges he incurred from his escape, including burglary, theft, receiving stolen property and illegal possession of a firearm.
Howard Holland, the former chief of Downingtown police, was in the middle of his first full day as acting warden when the escape occurred and soon became the face of the county’s promise to remake the security at the facility and to improve relations with its neighbors.
In response to a set of questions posed to him by email, Holland — now the full-time warden — said there had been no further escapes or escape attempts since Cavalcante’s flight. There had been only two others in the 40-plus years since 1980, one whose crab walk up the exercise yard walls Cavalcante emulated.
How confident is he in the security at the prison since he took over as acting and then permanent warden, Holland was asked.
“I am confident that we have greatly increased our security measures, both on the sides of deterrence and detection,” he said. “The county issued a flyer showing upgrades in the and number of surveillance cameras in operation, the amount of razor wire and type of fencing the prison perimeter, the addition of movement sensors in and out of the prison, and the expected installation of an intrusion detection system next month. Other measures — including the open-air exclosure of the exercise yards — are ongoing.
“We have continued, and will continue, to review and increase our security enhancements,” Holland said. “We cannot become complacent and believe that an attempt will never occur again just because of these enhancements.”
He acknowledged that the structural changes made are just as important as the vigilance of correctional officers in overseeing inmates. After all, had the officer in the observation tower seen Cavalcante running across the roof that morning, his attempt would have been just a blip on the screen.
“Diligent staff and structural changes to enhance security go hand-in-hand,” he said. “Both need to work in synergy to safely and securely house inmates at the prison.”
Holland said that his efforts to improve communications with residents were also ongoing.
“I continue to try to attend the Pocopson Township meetings to give residents an opportunity to meet face-to-face,” he said. “I have not made the last several meetings due to conflicts, but I do regularly correspond with Township officials. The Pocopson residents have been respectful while holding us to task on the enhancements that are necessary at the facility.”
Indeed, Elaine DiMonte, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, said relations with the prison — whose walls are found just across the street from the township building on South Wawaset Road — have not been better in her nine years in office.
“We definitely have improved communications with the prison and we are delighted Warden Holland has been appointed,” she said in a phone interview. “ He has really made a difference. I am confident the prison and Warden Holland are putting in place what needs to be done. I just hope the prison board continues to support him.”
Like others in the township, DiMonte said she was scared and anxious in the days when Cavalcante was roaming about the area and eluding capture. Those emotions have faded, however, she said. But unlike others, she was well aware that the facility housed dangerous criminals.
“As a resident and supervisor, I certainly felt scared (after the escape),” she said. “But I feel much better. I feel the prison has taken a lot of steps to ensure our security. I would expect there would be all kinds of people there. It wasn’t a surprise to me. After all, it’s a prison.”
DiMonte said that the anger and frustration residents expressed afterward seemed to have subsided.
“There have been fewer and fewer residents attending the supervisors’ meetings to ask what is being done at the prison to ensure their safety and its security. We have not had the experience of people attending to raise concerns,” she said.
But although one resident of the township who lives within a mile of the prison gates says she, too, feels a renewed sense of safety, she has concerns that the county prison board, which oversees the facility, may be falling behind in its promise to be transparent about what is being done to make it secure.
“Being so close, this is my community, and I care about the safety of my community,” said Stephanie Hoopman, who said she had been attending the scheduled prison board meetings since the escape, which left her terrified. “There seems to be a complacency in the community regarding the prison safety. It doesn’t seem like people are interested in following up to insurance that the prison board makes good on their promises.”
Hoopman, who was completing a morning walk when interviewed, called herself “very satisfied” with Holland’s tenure.
“He has kept his word,” she said. “Everything that he said he would do he has done. He has kept his word. I do feel safer. They have made some improvements.”
But she said the board members seem to have walked back the decision to install an enclosure over the exercise yards, canceling a contract to do so.
“They won’t admit they made a rush to judgment,” she added. “I feel like they are not being transparent. I just want honesty. My desire is to make sure the prison board upholds their promises.”
Asked what memory sticks in his mind about the day of Cavalcante’s escape and the weeks beyond, Holland demurred.
“There is not a particular memory about the escape that sticks in my mind because I have so many of them,” he said in his e-mail. “I will say that the culmination of both the embarrassment and a continued sense of urgency reminds me of those events every day.”
Cavalcante, serving his life sentence for Brandao’s murder, had not been scheduled for trial on the escape matters, although his name is listed on Judge Allison Bell Royer’s monthly trial list. His attorney, Lonnie Fish, couldn’t be reached for comment.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
Source: Berkshire mont
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