CANTON — A former police officer was sentenced Wednesday to up to life in prison with a chance of parole after 57 years for killing his pregnant lover and their nearly full-term unborn daughter, avoiding a possible death sentence.

The jurors quickly decided against a death sentence because Bobby Cutts Jr. had no history of violence, said foreman Charles Gillespie. They didn’t buy the prosecution’s argument that Cutts went to Jessie Davis’ house on a summer morning planning to kill her over mounting child support.

"The jury believed it could have been accidental, it could have been on purpose, but he didn’t go there with the intent to do that,” Gillespie said.

Stark County Common Pleas Judge Charles Brown Jr. rejected a defense request to combine Cutts’ sentences, which would have allowed earlier parole eligibility.

Cutts, 30, sobbed on the witness stand when he claimed Davis, 26, died from an elbow to the throat last June in an accident during an argument at her Northeast Ohio home. He said he dumped her body in a park in a panic. He returned to the witness stand after his conviction to ask jurors to spare his life during the sentencing phase of his trial.

Cutts hurt his case when he took the witness stand because most jurors didn’t find him believable, Gillespie said. Most damaging was how Cutts’ sobs abruptly stopped when the prosecution began its cross examination.

"It shocked me,” Gillespie said. “Suddenly Mr. Cutts was no longer crying and it was a complete switch in demeanor.”

Gillespie said another damaging comment was Cutts’ testimony that he found Davis lying on the floor in her bedroom and asked her if she was having the baby — it showed Cutts’ awareness the baby was near full-term. Gillespie said the fact that Cutts did nothing to try to save the fetus after Davis died weighed heavy in the jury’s verdict of aggravated murder in the baby’s death.

"Maybe he lied, but his own lies worked against him because otherwise we would have had to guess about what happened,” said Gillespie, 67, who was serving on his third jury and his second time as a foreman.

Jurors found Cutts guilty of aggravated murder in the death of the fetus but spared him the death penalty.

They found him guilty of the lesser charge of murder in Davis’ death in part because the medical examiner couldn’t determine how she died, he said.

Prosecutors argued that Cutts intentionally killed Davis and the fetus at her Lake Township home to avoid making child support payments for the child.

The couple’s son, Blake, then 2½, was found home alone and gave investigators their first clues to his mother’s disappearance when he said, “Mommy’s crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy’s in the rug,” and later, “Daddy’s mad.”

During statements before sentencing, the victim’s mother, Patty Porter, sobbed as she told the judge she was risking her family’s disapproval but wanted Cutts to be sentenced in a way that would allow him to be free at some point to share life with his son, Blake, now 3.

"I hope and pray I can raise him to forgive you,” she said. “He knows what you did. You would not believe the stories he’s told us.”

"I do forgive you,” Porter told Cutts, drawing tears from members of his family.

For more than a week, Cutts, who later resigned from the Canton police department, denied knowledge of her whereabouts as thousands searched in the area amid national media coverage. He finally led authorities to the body, wrapped in a comforter.

Cutts’ attorney Fernando Mack asked Brown to weigh that Cutts has accepted responsibility for his actions, had no prior history of violence and once saved the life of a fellow officer.

Mack said Cutts would appeal his conviction. He said one issue was an inconsistency between convicting Cutts of aggravated murder in the unborn baby’s death and guilty of the lesser crime of murder in Davis’ death.

Assistant Prosecutor Dennis Barr said he was satisfied that the judge ordered the sentences served back-to-back, giving Cutts the maximum time behind bars. He said he was confident the conviction would withstand any appeal.

While the cause of death was never established by the prosecution, Barr said he didn’t believe Davis died as Cutts testified — from an elbow to the throat.

"There is no way, shape or form this was an accidental death,” he said.

Outside the courthouse, Davis’ father, Ned Davis, was asked about his ex-wife’s offer of forgiveness and said he hadn’t forgiven Cutts.

"He violently murdered my daughter and granddaughter. What would you do?” Davis said.

"Mr. and Mrs. Cutts did not raise him to do this, of that I’m sure. Everybody lost today.”

For the aggravated murder charge in the death of the unborn baby, the judge accepted the jury’s recommendation of life in prison with parole eligibility after 30 years.

The additional years without parole that were tacked on to Cutts’ sentence were for convictions of murder in Davis’ death, abuse of a corpse, burglary and child endangering for leaving Blake Davis home alone.

Much of the jury’s 3½ days of deliberation was spent determining whether Cutts committed aggravated burglary and whether he intended to kill the baby, Gillespie said.  

Jurors decided that under state law aggravated burglary was committed when he killed Davis, he said. They then determined that anything Cutts did after committing that felony was an aggravated crime, including doing nothing to save the unborn baby.

"We all felt that at that point she might have been dead, but there was a chance the baby could live and he didn’t do anything to stop it,” Gillespie said. “He went ahead with the cover up.”

   

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