Weeks before convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante broke free from the Chester County Prison in Pennsylvania, sparking a 14-day manhunt that ended in his mid-September capture, staff received an internal warning that he was “planning an escape,” according to an email first obtained by ABC News. An email from Sgt. Jerry Beavers to Capt. Harry Griswold was written hours after Cavalcante crab-walked up a prison wall to freedom, and explained that Beavers was “just sending this cause I don’t want this to come back on us or [Officer] Hernandez in anyway. He noted back in July that this inmate was planning an escape.” Griswold forwarded the email to the newly appointed acting warden a few hours later. “I am not sure how you want to move forward with this information internally,” Griswold wrote. A county spokesperson told ABC that Cavalcante was “initially identified as an escape risk” after his initial 2021 arrest, and that officials received “unsubstantiated information” around the time of his trial that reinforced that status. An unnamed source at the Chester County Prison told The Philadelphia Inquireron Tuesday that Cavalcante was considered a flight risk the entire time he was incarcerated there.
