A murderer made a brazen escape from a suburban Philadelphia jail yard by scaling a wall, climbing over razor wire and jumping from a roof in a breakout that wasn’t detected by guards for a full hour, authorities said Wednesday as the killer eluded a widening manhunt for a seventh day.
The timeline and details of Danelo Cavalcante’s escape — including that he got out using the same route another prisoner took in May — were released as police from various agencies flooded a search zone of increasingly worried residents. A tower guard on duty during the breakout was put on leave as part of the escape investigation.
The escape and search have attracted international attention and became big news in Cavalcante’s native Brazil. The main newspaper in Rio de Janeiro ran a lengthy story Wednesday with the headline “Dangerous hide-and-seek.”
Howard Holland, the acting warden of the Chester County Prison, played a security video at a news conference Wednesday. It shows the 34-year-old Cavalcante standing in a passageway next to the jail yard before bracing his hands on one wall and his feet on another then “crab-walking” up the walls out of the camera’s view.
Holland said the prison had brought in a consultant after the first escape in May and added razor wire to that area.
“What was perhaps overlooked was the fact that addressing the single point of physical countermeasures should have been bolstered by additional means. We are addressing that,” Holland said. He said the prison was fully staffed when Cavalcante broke out.
The prison is considering adding officers to the yard during recreation times, as well as caging in the top of those yards, Holland said. The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office has taken over the escape investigation, he said.
Holland said the inmate who escaped in May was returned within minutes after a tower guard quickly sounded the alarm. He said Cavalcante was identified as missing after a headcount, more than an hour after the video was taken. A public siren was sounded about 10 a.m.
An officer in a tower missed Cavalcante’s stealthy walk up the wall the morning of Aug. 31 while his prison block was outside in the exercise yard, Howard Holland, acting warden of Chester County Prison, said.
The guard officer in the tower has been put on administrative leave, Holland said.
Cavalcante has not yet been recaptured, but he was spotted on a night security camera just a few miles away from the prison where he escaped, and is believed to be still in the local area.
Source: NPR.
