Escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcante survived only on watermelon for 2 weeks, hid poop under leaves and reveals just how close cops came to catching him
Sep. 14, 2023
Captured criminal Danelo Cavalcante was “brutally honest” to police after he was finally caught on Wednesday.
Captured criminal Danelo Cavalcante told cops he survived for nearly two weeks on stolen watermelon — and that officers scouring heavy Pennsylvania underbrush for him had gotten so close, they nearly stepped on him three times.
The 34-year-old convicted killer was “brutally honest” after he was apprehended Wednesday morning, sharing how he even buried his poop to avoid getting tracked, US Marshal Robert Clark told NewsNation.
“He did say on three occasions law enforcement officers did almost step on him. They were about seven to eight yards away from him,” Clark said.
Cavalcante, who escaped from Chester County Prison on Aug. 31, had just been sentenced to life for stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death in front of her two young children in 2021.
Prosecutors are expected to levy additional charges for crimes he committed during his 14 days on the run.
Cavalcante said there were times that police were yards away from him while they searched the thick Pennsylvania brush for him.
After crab-walking up and over a pair of close-set walls and escaping jail, Cavalcante told police, he was able to survive for days eating watermelon he had stolen from a nearby farm.
The escapee drank water from a stream, hid within dense brush, and only moved at night.
To cover his tracks, he hid his feces under piles of leaves.
Cavalcante had been sentenced to life in prison just before his Aug. 31 escape.
“We believe he was brutally honest. He described things such as hiding his fecal matter under leaves so that we couldn’t detect them,” Clark said.
When asked how he changed his appearance while on the lam, Cavalcante — who became clean-shaven overnight — said a backpack he had stolen contained a single razor.
Cavalcante also told police that, had he not been captured, he soon planned to use the firearm he had stolen from someone’s garage to flee the country.
He was finally located Wednesday morning by a police dog named Yoda.
“He intended to carjack somebody in the community and head north to Canada, or either or try to get back to Puerto Rico. He said he was going to do that in the next 24 hours. And that was the reason he kept that firearm. He knew he needed a weapon in order to get a vehicle,” Clark said.
Cavalcante was finally captured Wednesday morning, when he tried to escape a Belgian Malinois K-9 named Yoda, who sank his teeth into the killer and pinned him to the ground, leaving him bloodied.
Officers hauled Cavalcante off without firing a single shot, but not before posing for a group photo with the recaptured criminal.
In addition to the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Cavalcante is suspected of gunning a friend down with six shots in 2017 during a dispute over car repair payments back in his Brazilian hometown.
After that killing, he hid out in the Brazillian ranchlands for weeks before making his way north and illegally entering the US.
A preliminary hearing for Cavalcante has been set for Sept. 27, according to court documents, which noted he was denied bail.
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Photo of proud cops parading Danelo Cavalcante ‘not ethical’ and ‘really inhumane,’ policing expert claims
By Isabel Keane
Police posed for a photo with Cavalcante after he was caught.
The gloating photo cops took with newly recaptured murderer Danelo Cavalcante on Wednesday is drawing heat from law enforcement experts — with one retired captain calling it “really inhumane.”
More than 30 officers and federal agents — including a hero K-9 — assembled around a handcuffed Cavalcante moments after he was captured early Wednesday, ending the two-week manhunt for the “armed and dangerous” killer.
Helicopter footage caught a colleague holding up a phone camera as the group squeezed into the shot, some even taking a knee as Cavalcante stood in the middle.
“They’re proud of their work,” Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said in defense of the snapshot.
“I’m not bothered at all by the fact that they took a photograph with him in custody.”
Some policing experts, however, disagree.
“It is not appropriate. It is not ethical. It’s really inhumane,” said Niles Wilson, a retired Newark, NJ, police captain who is now the senior director of law enforcement initiatives at the Center for Policing Equity.
Experts said they understood the officers wanted to celebrate Danelo Cavalcante’s capture, but that the move was not humane.
“In my law enforcement experience, I know how amped up police can get, but that’s not an excuse to mistreat someone.”
While taking photos, especially after a successful arrest, has become more prevalent with smartphones, many law enforcement agencies have social media guidelines barring such posts to officers’ personal pages.
Still, experts say those rules are inconsistent and have not been implemented by each agency across the board.
Some policing experts said the group snapshot was not appropriate for officers to take.
“There’s not standards or uniformity in those policies,” said Adam Scott Wandt, an associate professor of public policy at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
“From a policing ethics point of view, a police officer taking a picture on the street and putting it on social media or doing it as a celebratory or retaliatory thing is not OK,” Wandt said.
“As an attorney, it is an evidentiary problem being created here too. It’s a dangerous practice for a police officer to create evidence on a scene and not properly turn it over to the prosecutor.”
While the Pennsylvania State Police has a conduct policy that prohibits posting or forwarding images of investigations or operations — as well as content that depicts the agency’s uniform, badge or other official gear without authorization — it’s unclear if Wednesday’s photo would fall under that policy.
Leonard Sipes, a former officer who has worked for 35 years in public affairs and communications for federal and state law enforcement agencies, said he would have advised the officers not to take the pic.
Cavalcante was caught after being on the run for two weeks.
“The police had nothing to do with the release of the photo. It was made available by a news source,” Sipes said.
“But posing with the suspect, that’s questionable. If I was on the scene as the public affairs officer representing a law enforcement agency, I would have discouraged it.”
Various photos of Cavalcante immediately following his arrest have been circulating, including a shot of police dog Yoda pinning him down and him being bloodied after the K-9 bit his scalp.
Cavalcante, 34, who escaped from Chester County Prison on Aug. 31, had just been sentenced to life for stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death in front of her two young children in 2021.
Other photos of Cavalcante bloodied following his capture have also been circulating online.
Prosecutors are expected to levy additional charges for crimes he committed during his 14 days on the run.
In addition to the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Cavalcante is suspected of gunning a friend down with six shots in 2017 during a dispute over car repair payments back in his Brazilian hometown.
After that killing, he hid out in the Brazillian ranchlands for weeks before making his way north and illegally entering the US.
Police dog Yoda was responsible for locating Cavalcante on Wednesday in rural Pennsylvania.
A preliminary hearing for Cavalcante has been set for Sept. 27, according to court documents, which noted he was denied bail.
1 comment:
These so called experts are full of shit. Nobody really cares that in order for these "police experts" to make the news themselves, they had to criticize the police who took this dangerous criminal into custody without killing him. The police should be proud of their actions and capture of this dangerous criminal. "Say Cheese."
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