Ohio Ex-Cop Sentenced To Life In Prison

A former police officer was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with a chance of parole after 57 years for killing his pregnant lover and their unborn child, avoiding a possible death sentence.

Stark County Common Pleas Judge Charles Brown Jr. rejected a defense request to merge the sentences against Bobby Cutts Jr. The judge could have allowed parole eligibility earlier.

Jurors spared Cutts, 30, the death penalty in the most serious charge, an aggravated murder count in the death of the fetus.

Cutts had sobbed on the witness stand when he claimed the death of 26-year-old Jessie Davis from an elbow to the throat last June was an accident during an argument. 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.

Prosecutors argued that Cutts killed Davis and the nearly full-term unborn baby at her Lake Township home in northeast Ohio 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 denied knowledge of her whereabouts as thousands searched in the area amid blanket national cable TV 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.

Legal analyst Avery Friedman told CBS News affiliate WOIO that these mitigation factors "were obviously taken into deep consideration when the jury came back this afternoon."

Davis' sister, Whitney Davis, faced Cutts in the courtroom and said she didn't believe he was sorry.

"You're sorry you got caught up in your lies."

"You got rid of someone who was an inconvenience to you," she said. Cutts sat maintaining eye contact, nodding his head slightly. "It disgusts me that you're here and she's gone."

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 charges of murder in Davis' death, abuse of a corpse, burglary and child endangering for leaving Blake Davis alone.

Cutts, who resigned from the Canton police department, was acquitted of a more serious aggravated murder charge in Davis' death. Defense attorneys said in the past that they felt acquitting Cutts of aggravated murder in Davis' death but finding him guilty of aggravated murder in the baby's death was inconsistent. The issue might be part of an appeal, the defense has said.

"There are so many issues in the court of appeals," Friedman told WOIO. "Among other things, the jury pool, whether or not the testimony of [the couple's young son] Blake should have gone into evidence...many, many issues go into the court of appeals."