Volunteers Search For Missing Ohio Mother

(CBS/AP)  About 1,400 volunteers searched neighborhoods, farm fields and woods Thursday for a woman, nine months pregnant, who disappeared from her rural home last week.

"I think every single rock will be turned over on this search," said organizer Tim Miller, who runs the internationally active search team Texas EquuSearch.

Miller had expected about 200 volunteers Thursday and said he was a bit overwhelmed by the turnout. His team also brought in sonar equipment to check ponds and a remote-control airplane equipped with a camera to look for any sign of the missing woman, Jessie Davis, 26.

"They're going to help us find Jessie, hopefully, bring her back safe," said Davis' younger sister, Whitney Davis, who wore a T-shirt with her sister's picture and the word "Missing" in red letters.

Volunteers searched for about 4½ hours before a storm halted their efforts. People divided into groups of about 100 and walked side-by-side in lines to comb the area around Jessie Davis' northeast Ohio home.

"It's sad but, you know, she's probably gone," dog owner Stephanie Dietrich told CBS affiliate WOIO. She and Rico searched for Davis Wednesday and were expected to be out looking again Thursday.

Many of the more than 1,000 searchers Thursday have taken off work or used vacation days to help, reports CBS News correspondent Teri Okita.

"We can all feel for her. As a mother, it's important," said Susan Patterson.

Davis, whose baby is due July 3, was last heard from in a phone call with her mother on June 13. Two days later, her mother checked on her home and found it in shambles, with the furniture overturned, a comforter missing and her 2-year-old grandson wandering around alone.

The little boy told investigators: "Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in rug."

"We're holding onto that hope that maybe she's still alive out there," Miller said Wednesday. "That would be the greatest thing in the world, but realistically, we know after a period of time that that normally doesn't happen."

Cadaver dogs were sent to areas where they picked up on some odors, but nothing had been found by mid-afternoon, Miller said. "A lot of times they'll pick up on something that's not there," he said.

Miller started EquuSearch after his 16-year-old daughter, Laura, disappeared in Texas; she was found dead 17 months later. Funded through donations, the group offers search-and-rescue training and uses specialized search equipment to help recover human remains around the world and search for missing children. It has worked on hundreds of missing persons cases.

On Wednesday, for the second time in three days, investigators searched the home of the man who fathered Davis' 2-year-old son and unborn daughter, although authorities have repeatedly said Canton police officer Bobby Cutts Jr. is not a suspect.

Cutts, 30, told The (Canton) Repository he had nothing to do with Davis' disappearance, and that he has slept little and had no appetite since the 26-year-old woman vanished.

Sheriff's investigators and FBI agents carried out more than a dozen white cardboard boxes, a few brown bags and three large black plastic bags during a search that lasted more than three hours.

A legal order allowed investigators to obtain some of Davis' cell phone records, which are being reviewed, Stark County sheriff's Chief Deputy Rick Perez said at a news conference Wednesday.

Cutts, who also has two children with his wife, Kelly, said they are separated but have not filed for divorce and that his wife knew he had a relationship with Davis.

He said he last spoke with Davis at 8 p.m. on June 13, about 90 minutes before she last spoke with her mother.

Cutts' mother, Renee Horne, told the Repository that agents at her son's home were looking for Davis' cell phone and a quilt missing from Davis' home.

Horne said FBI agents questioned her son twice Wednesday, and read him his Miranda rights during the second interview. Investigators also took Cutts' two cell phones, Horne said.

Meanwhile, authorities said DNA tests would not be finished until next week on a newborn girl left on a porch in Wooster, about 45 miles away from Davis' home. Authorities have said they doubt that Davis gave birth to the infant, who was less than 24 hours old when she was found Monday, but they are conducting the tests to be sure.

On its Web site, the FBI lists the case as a kidnapping. But FBI spokesman Scott Wilson in Cleveland said the label is standard whenever foul play is a possibility, and the agency doesn't know if Davis was abducted or not.

The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Davis' whereabouts. EquuSearch added a $5,000 reward.

Thursday morning, scores volunteers gathered at a firehouse near a sign that read, "Pray for Jessie," to help EquuSearch's efforts.

"My heart goes out to them," said Lisa Dillon, 47, who took a vacation day from her state job to aid in the search. "I just want to help."

[kailumego1]

You cowardly racists go through your ranting and ravings every time a black person does something despicable, go and research history Europeans have committed enough despicable, diabolical, deplorable acts to outweigh the fledgling criminal behavior blacks, Hispanics, etc have committed against each other times a 100.

The history of Europeans invasion in East, West, and Central Africa [Congo, Ivory coast, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, etc], the Caribbean, India, China, Northern Africa, the U.S. in the Philippines, North and South Americas etc. speaks volumes of barbarianism and Mephistopheles.

You want to talk about savagery; the Belgium government under the auspicious of Leopold II ordered the genocide and mutilation of some 10 million Congolese.

Many of these barbaric acts were cannibalistic where Belgium officers would murder men, women, and children pick off their flesh and smoke of a fire, which they ate.

They were even so barbaric Belgium officers would decapitate the heads of villagers put it on a stick and place all around the landscape as trophies for ornamentation.


So, you low-class ignorant losers please reframe from the name-calling.

[gina33]

I am praying that all turns out well. You see this more and more each day. Makes you want to stay in your house and never come out, or let your children out.

as far as the racism goes, don't we all cut and bleed the same?

[macktruck22]

CHECK THIS OUT WWW.FELONYMILLS.COM IT HAS INFO ON SIMILAR TOPIC'S AND OTHER BAZAR STORIES.

[jt92202]

I don't know who did it, I hope they find her and the baby but we all know how these usually end up.

As to what Bobby is saying or not saying to the media:

If it was me, if I did it or not I WOULD SAY NOTHING TO THE MEDIA!!! Talk to the cops only!! The spouse/bf/gf is always blamed by the media and police. The police is the only ones that need to have questions answered. The Media tries and convicts someone in 2 minutes with their twisting just for the ratings!! Also the more info on the news the less the police can control, let them do their jobs then tell the Media what happened! All the Media do is Hound people in times of heart break!

Someone did it and more than likely we will find out when the police find out, I can wait till then.

[sadrn2001]

dkhill108, you refer to the media as the liberal media, when Rupert Murdoch (a conservative Christian) owns a large portion of the news media outlets these days. Also, Fox News is about as right wing as you can get. s

[whatithink-2009]

mrscmb22,

I don't know who did this but I do know that the media has a good way of blasting non-truths and have-truths and repeating those non-truths and have-truths over and over again like a broken record. HOWEVER, the moment that the non-truths and have-truths are exposed as being such, the truth is quietly spoken and reported on page 100. I've seen it time and time again.

[mrscmb22]

I personally don't think that the guy did this. Like someone else said earlier...it may have been the wife. A similar incident happened in Ridgeland, Mississippi with a very sweet girl named Avis. She was 7 mths. pregnant and engaged to this womanizer...Avis was shot and stabbed multiple times by her fiancee's lover. This woman had been in their home at a house warming. This just goes to show how MEN think. The girlfriend has been charged, but hadn't been to trial....because she is pregnant by this womanizer. Like how other people said, the media has a way to make you find someone guilty right away before they are even found guilty. I just hope she and the baby are ok. Unlike my friend, she and her baby are deceased from something so senseless....But in my heart, I know he(the fiancee') had something to do with her murder because that girl couldn't have shot and stabbed Avis by herself. He plead the 5th at her hearing and wouldnt speak with the authorities at all and still won't.

[whatithink-2009]

Another example of MEDIA MANIPULATION...

"Chovanetz also said there was no connection to the nearby city-sponsored festival for Juneteenth, which commemorates Texas slaves getting the word that they had been freed. "

[whatithink-2009]

"""Texas Crowd Kills Man After Car Hits Kid Texas Crowd Kills Passenger Riding In Vehicle That Struck Child During Juneteenth Celebration" how is it that the left wing media has just grazed over this OBVIOUSLY RACIST and CRIMINAL act committed by black thugs?
Posted by dkhill108 at 12:57 PM : Jun 21, 2007"

- DKHill, where do you get your information from??? The child who was hit was hispanic. The passenger who was killed was hispanic. The housing complex were the incident happened was primarily hispanic. How do you come up with black thugs?

[dmk3]

dkhill,
you are a PROBABLY complete idiot. why do people like you always tend to dig up stories about other races, PROBABLY blacks, like white people PROBABLY don't do crazy *** too? what is in your head, PROBABLY not a brain. how insensitive can you be. you post stuff without regards to the bottom line of the story. a woman is missing as is her unborn child.

and MACKTRUCK22 why do you keep posting that web site? Get over it already!!!!!!