Cavalcante ‘was planning an escape' weeks before Chester County prison break, email shows

Chester County Prison corrections officers in an email exchange hours after Danilo Cavalcante escaped from the Pocopson Township facility noted that weeks earlier someone raised the alarm that the convicted killer could be "planning an escape."

Back in July 2023, a prison corrections officer verbally told his supervisor that Cavalcante was an escape risk, Chester County spokesperson Becky Brain told NBC10.

That exchange was noted in a series of two emails dated the afternoon of Aug. 31, 2023 -- the day Cavalcante crab-walked up a wall to freedom -- that the county shared with NBC10.

The emails were between a Captain Griswold and Sergeant Beavers.

"I am just sending this cause I don't want this to come back on us or Hernandez in anyway... He noted back in July that this inmate was planning an escape," Beavers wrote to Griswold.

Griswold then forwarded that email to acting Warden Howard Holland.

"I am not sure how you want me to move forward with this information internally," Griswold wrote.

"These three wanted to ensure Acting Warden Holland knew that information about an escape was previously noted," Brain said.

Brain said the first names of the officials involved and corrections officer Hernandez were redacted or omitted.

Cavalcante was considered an escape risk back in 2021 when he was taken to Chester County prison after he fled to Virginia after being named as a suspect in the stabbing death of Deborah Brandao.

The July mention about Cavalcante planning an escape would have been before he was convicted in mid-August of murdering Brandao in front of her children.

"During the time surrounding his trial, unsubstantiated information from an unknown source was received reinforcing Cavalcante’s status as an escape risk," Brain wrote.

Cavalcante would spend two weeks on the run -- putting various parts of Chester County on edge throughout early September before being recaptured on Sept. 13, 2023, and taken to another prison.

"Prior to the Cavalcante escape and capture, Chester County Prison’s security measures for an inmate identified as an 'escape risk' were only enacted and heightened when the inmate was being transported off prison property," Brian wrote.

New policies for inmates who might escape

Holland -- who only took over the prison shortly before the prison break -- has "strengthened security measures inside the prison as well as during prisoner transport off prison property," Brain said.

Inmates feared to be planning an escape now must wear different color clothing and be monitored outside his cell by one or two corrections officers, the county said.

"This change in the escape risk policy is one of many policy changes that have been enacted and are being enacted by Acting Warden Holland to bolster security and to support the work of the Prison’s staff," Brain wrote. "The prior policy is indicative of why the Chester County Prison Board felt the need to make changes to the Prison’s leadership."

The county prison board has promised for improvements to be made to the county jail.

Cavalcante will serve the rest of his life behind bars.