Police capture fugitive Danelo Cavalcante after two week manhunt. Maps track the search.

A two-week manhunt for escaped killer Danelo Cavalcante ended Wednesday with his capture by police in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

A DEA fixed-wing aircraft using heat detectors located Cavalcante near a John Deere tractor dealership early Wednesday morning. About two dozen tactical police officers moved in shortly after 8 a.m. and surrounded Cavalcante in a wooded area.

Cavalcante tried to get away and was restrained by a K9 police dog. He sustained a minor scalp wound and continued to resist before police "forcibly" took him into custody.

The capture ended an intense search for Cavalcante, 34, a Brazilian national, who eluded police since escaping from Chester County Prison in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 31, two weeks after being sentenced to life in prison for killing his former girlfriend. He was being held in Chester County before transfer to a state prison.

About 500 law enforcement officers were involved in the search. A reward for Cavalcante's capture increased to $25,000.

How Cavalcante's escape and capture unfolded:

Thursday | Aug. 31

8:51 a.m.: Cavalcante's escape is caught on a prison surveillance video, which shows him crab-walking up a tower wall. He gets through razor wire, runs across a roof, scales a fence and flees the prison. His escape goes undetected for nearly an hour.

9:30 a.m.: Cavalcante is seen walking on Wawaset Road in Pocopson Township, near the prison.

9:48 a.m.: Officers raise alert that Cavalcante is missing.

9:50 a.m.: Prison goes into lockdown.

10:01 a.m.: The prison sounds its alarm and notifies authorities of the escape. Officers begin searching for Cavalcante within a 6-mile radius of the prison. He is described as being 5 feet tall, 120 pounds, brown eyes and long dark curly hair.

Friday | Sept. 1

11:40 p.m.: A West Chester resident finds Cavalcante inside his home. He calls 911, but Cavalcante flees.

Saturday | Sept. 2

1:43 a.m.: Cavalcante is recorded about 1½ miles from the prison by a residential surveillance camera in the 1800 block of Lenape Road in Pocopson Township, according to the Chester County District Attorney's Office.

Monday | Sept. 4

8:21 p.m.: Cavalcante is recorded by a video camera on a trail in Longwood Gardens, a 200-acre tourist destination in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, about 5 miles south of Chester County Prison.

9:33 p.m.: Cavalcante is recorded by the same video camera.

Police search an area near Pocopson Township, a residential neighborhood near the Chester County Prison, where Cavalcante had been seen multiple times over Labor Day weekend.

Tuesday | Sept. 5

Police use speakers in cars and helicopters to blast a recording from Cavalcante’s mother in Portuguese asking her son “to surrender peacefully."

Wednesday | Sept. 6

Authorities release video footage showing Cavalcante's prison escape. The FBI and Border Patrol agents aid in the search.

Thursday | Sept. 7

A resident sees Cavalcante running in a wooded area near Longwood Gardens shortly before noon.

Saturday | Sept. 9

Cavalcante eludes a police perimeter and steals a white 2020 Ford Transit van from Baily's Dairy in West Chester. The van is later found nearly out of fuel and abandoned in a field in East Nantmeal Township, a rural area in northern Chester County.

Cavalcante goes to the home of a former co-worker near Phoenixville to seek help. The co-worker isn't home, but an image taken by his video doorbell shows Cavalcante has changed his appearance. He's now clean-shaven and wearing a yellow or green hooded sweatshirt, black baseball-style hat, green prison pants and white shoes.

Cavalcante tries to contact another former co-worker that same night in Phoenixville, without success.

Phoenixville is more than 20 miles northeast of Longwood Gardens.

Monday | Sept. 11

10:10 p.m.: Cavalcante takes ammunition and a Ruger rifle equipped with a flashlight and scope from the garage of a private home in South Coventry Township, about 20 miles from the prison, shortly after 10 p.m. Monday.

The homeowner sees Cavalcante and fires several shots at him with a pistol. Police don't believe Cavalcante was injured. Cavalcante was looking for a place to hide when he saw the rifle in a corner, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said at a news conference.

Wednesday | Sept. 13

1 a.m.: Heat detectors aboard a fixed-wing aircraft from the Drug Enforcement Administration locate a heat signal west of Pennsylvania Route 100, north of Prizer Road, more than 20 miles from Chester County Prison. A storm moves in, forcing police to wait.

8:14 a.m.: Twenty to twenty-five tactical officers surround Cavalcante, who is hiding behind the tractor dealership.

Police “had the element of surprise,” Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said at a news conference. “Cavalcante did not realize he was surrounded until that had occurred.”

Cavalcante tries to crawl away, carrying the .22-caliber rifle stolen from a residential home on Monday. A police dog restrains him and Cavalcante sustains a minor scalp wound, police said.

He's forcibly taken into custody, wearing a stolen Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt and boots, taken sometime during his escape.

Police said Cavalcante was taken to the Avondale state police station for questioning. He will ultimately be taken to a state prison to begin serving his life sentence. 

Before the escape

On Aug. 16, a jury found Cavalcante guilty of killing Deborah Brandao, 33, in Schuylkill Township, Pennsylvania, in April 2021. He stabbed her to death in the presence of her 7-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son, prosecutors say, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Authorities said Cavalcante, a former agricultural worker, is also wanted for a 2017 murder of a 20-year-old man over a car repair debt in Brazil. Prosecutors said Cavalcante killed Brandao to prevent her from telling police that he was wanted in the murder.

Igor Bolte, another prisoner, escaped from the county prison on May 19, scaling the wall of the exercise yard the same way Cavalcante did. Bolte was recaptured a short time later.

CONTRIBUTING Christopher Cann and Eric Lagatta, Paste BN Network

SOURCE Paste BN Network reporting and research; The Associated Press