Danelo Cavalcante, the Pennsylvania jail escapee, has now been roaming wooded areas and small suburban cities for almost two weeks, presumably with no shelter and little to eat or drink, as he flees the tons of of cops desperately looking for him.

Back residence in rural Brazil, his mom, Iracema Cavalcante, sees a son whose life has educated him to dwell alone and overcome hardships, making ready him for his lengthy flight from the authorities after being convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend.

But Ms. Cavalcante, whereas saying her son stabbed his ex-girlfriend in Pennsylvania in 2021 and murdered a person in Brazil in 2017, insists her son, even when armed, “did not pose a threat to anyone.” He is simply preventing to outlive, she mentioned, as he has for a lot of his life.

“His training was his suffering,” mentioned Ms. Cavalcante, in her first interview since her son escaped from jail final month. “It was going to sleep hungry, it was waking up as I wondered what to feed them.”

Mr. Cavalcante by no means went to high school, she mentioned, and as a substitute started working on the age of 5. He first shined footwear, then bought greens available in the market and, by the age of seven, was working within the fields on another person’s farm, she mentioned.

“We’re poor. We’re humble. But we’re workers,” Ms. Cavalcante mentioned in a virtually hourlong interview on Tuesday morning. “What we have, we fought to get.”

The authorities in Pennsylvania mentioned that upbringing had almost definitely made Mr. Cavalcante far harder to catch.

“It’s not surprising to me that he’s able to last out there,” Lt. Col George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police instructed reporters final week. “The whole goal here is not a contest of: How much can you take out there? It’s: How much can we stress you? How much can we push you that you make a mistake and we capture you?”

So far, Mr. Cavalcante has not made that mistake. On Monday night, nonetheless, he took a danger, entering an open garage to steal a rifle after which coming underneath fireplace from the house owner he robbed. But he bought away once more and is now armed, heightening fears that he poses a fair larger danger to the general public.

Mr. Cavalcante has been on the run since he crab-walked up a wall to flee from Chester County Prison in Pennsylvania on Aug. 31. He had simply been sentenced to life in jail for murdering his ex-girlfriend in Pennsylvania in 2021. The authorities believed that she had found proof that he had murdered another person in Brazil in 2017.

Ms. Cavalcante didn’t dispute her son’s guilt in each murders. But she additionally argued that in each instances he was cornered, suggesting that his ex-girlfriend had threatened to show him in to the authorities and that the person he shot useless in 2017 had wished to kill Mr. Cavalcante first.

In the case of his ex-girlfriend, Mr. Cavalcante was convicted of stabbing her almost 40 instances in entrance of her youngsters.

“Did it happen? It happened,” Ms. Cavalcante mentioned. “But it happened because of the stranglehold she put on him, the stance she took with him.”

She added: “It wasn’t femicide. He had to, he had no other choice.”

Ms. Cavalcante mentioned her son ought to face penalties for his crimes. But she argued that life in jail — or a loss of life by the hands of the police — was unjust.

“If I said my son didn’t make a mistake, I’d be lying,” she mentioned. “I know what my son did was wrong. I know my son should pay for his mistake. But I want my son to pay for his mistake with dignity. Not to pay with his life.”

The police have been blasting an audio recording from autos and helicopters of Ms. Cavalcante, in her native Portuguese, urging her son to show himself in. Ms. Cavalcante mentioned she by no means spoke with the police however that they requested the audio by her daughter, who had been dwelling within the United States however is now being deported.

Later within the interview with Mr. Cavalcante’s mom, she mentioned she really thinks that, confronted with life in jail, he could also be higher off dying now than turning himself in. “If it’s to go to a place to suffer and die in that place, it’s better to die soon,” she mentioned. “You don’t have to suffer so much.”

She mentioned that given his choices, she was already shedding hope. “Today, I see my son as dead,” she mentioned. “In a strange place, trampled, everyone lying about him, saying he’s something that he’s not.”

She mentioned that if she may ship a message to her son now, it could not be a plea to show himself in, however fairly that “he asks God to forgive him for what he did.”

Paulo Motoryn contributed reporting from Brasília.