MORGANTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania State Police led another manhunt after nine teens broke out of a juvenile detention facility in Berks County on Sunday night. This was about a half-hour away from where the search for Danilo Cavalcante ended last week. But in this case, the search was over in under 12 hours.
It started around 8 p.m. when the teens overpowered two female staffers at Abraxas Academy, a juvenile detention center in the middle of the woods between 176 and Route 10.
State Police spokesman Trooper David Beohm says the boys, who are between 15 and 17 years old, made their move.
"These nine kids kind of banded together. They overtook two female staff at the prison to get the keys so they could get out of the door," Beohm said.
"There was a little struggle there. One of them suffered minor injuries with her hand because they ripped her keys out of her hand. But they were able to get out of the building, out into the yard."
Once out of the building, police say they escaped the yard by slipping out of a weak point of the fence.
A few hours later and miles away, police say some of the teens tried to steal a parked car, they broke the window, but were spooked and ran off.
With rain overnight, conditions outside the detention center were not friendly, and the four teens gave up four miles away from Abraxas after spending hours in the woods. Around 5:45 a.m., cold and wet, they knocked on the door of a home. The homeowner then called 911.
"Basically banged on the door," said Beohm. "They were done, they were tired, they were cold. We went there, took them into custody.”
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The search continued for the remaining five until about an hour later, when police got a report of a stolen truck and trailer just down the road. Police say they chased them down and took four juveniles from the truck into custody.
A fifth teen ran off but was captured shortly afterward.
The teens will face charges for the escape. They were at Abraxas for various charges, including robbery and weapons violations, or for bad behavior at other facilities.
Seven of them are from Harrisburg, and the other two are from Berks and Lehigh counties.