PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A correctional officer at Chester County Prison warned that convicted murderer Danilo Cavalcante was “planning an escape” a month before he broke out, according to a new report.
Using a right-to-know request, ABC News obtained an email from a Chester County Prison sergeant to a captain, which said, “I am just sending this cause I don’t want this to come back on us or [Officer] Hernandez in any way. He noted back in July that this inmate was planning an escape.”
The email was sent just hours after Cavalcante escaped on Aug. 31. The captain forwarded the email to the acting warden a few hours after he received it, ABC reported.
A Chester County spokesperson said Cavalcante was identified as an escape risk when he was first sent to Chester County Prison in 2021. Despite that status, he was allowed to be in the prison yard with other detainees during a recreation period and was not directly supervised by a correctional officer on the ground, since the facility’s escape risk protocols only applied when detainees were not on prison grounds.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office is conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the escape. A spokesperson would not comment on the escape warning.
Cavalcante broke out of the prison while awaiting transfer to a state prison to serve a life sentence for fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend in 2021. Prosecutors said he killed her to stop her from telling police he was wanted in Brazil for another homicide.
Video, released on Sept. 6, shows Cavalcante crab-walk up the wall of the prison yard and onto the roof. Officials said he then made his way past a razor wire fence.
The two-week manhunt started in lower Chester County, near Longwood Gardens, which is not far from the prison. He eventually broke out of authorities’ search perimeter, stole a van, and drove 30 miles north.
Although Cavalcante was armed near the end of the manhunt, no citizens or police officers were injured.
Chester County Prison has since said it enacted upgraded security measures and worked to fully enclose prison yards.