The murderer on the run arrested after an intense manhunt in the northeastern United States survived by eating watermelon and wanted to flee to Canada or Puerto Rico, police said.
Danelo Cavalcante, a 34-year-old Brazilian, managed for two weeks to evade hundreds of Pennsylvania police officers supported by the FBI and US Marshals, responsible for tracking down fugitives.
Despite roadblocks, drones and helicopters, Cavalcante remained elusive by moving at night, sheltering in thick bushes and burying his excrement so as not to leave a trace.
But he was spotted Wednesday morning by a plane equipped with thermal imaging and then caught by a police dog, a four-year-old Malinois shepherd named Yoda, who bit him on the skull, causing him to bleed. abundantly.
“He said he found watermelons on a farm, drank water from a stream and only traveled at night,” US Marshal Robert Clark said Wednesday evening on NBC .
“His ultimate goal was to steal someone’s car (…) then head north”, with the final destination being “Canada or Puerto Rico”. “That was his plan for the next 24 hours so we were just in time to locate and arrest him.”
The rather slight fugitive, measuring approximately 1.52 m and 54 kg, managed to escape on August 31 from the Chester County Prison.
His escape, revealed by a video from a prison camera broadcast by the authorities, was as spectacular as it was embarrassing for the prison, police and judicial authorities.
The prisoner could be seen hiding in a recess in the courtyard, then climbing nimbly, spider-man style, his body horizontally between two walls, and disappearing on the roof.
Sentenced in August to life in prison for stabbing his former girlfriend to death in 2021 in front of the victim’s child, Cavalcante was considered by authorities to be extremely “dangerous.”
He was transferred to a high-security prison in Montgomery County, still in Pennsylvania.
14/09/2023 20:23:59 – New York (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
