Ohio jury spares Bobby Cutts death penalty; life sentence given

Former police officer Bobby Cutts Jr. was recently sentenced 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.

Jurors spared the 30-year-old Cutts 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 (JET, March 3).

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 2 1/2, was found home alone and gave investigators their first clues to his mother's disappearance.

During statements before sentencing, the victim's mother, Patty Porter, cried 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."

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 alone.

--Associated Press