February 11, 2009 3:25 PM
- Text
Ex-Cop Guilty Of Murdering Pregnant Lover
(CBS/AP)
A jury has reached a guilty verdict in the trial of a former police officer accused of killing his pregnant lover and their unborn child.
Bobby Cutts Jr. was found guilty on nearly all the murder charges related to the deaths of Jessie Davis and her near full-term fetus.
Cutts was convicted of aggravated murder in the death of the nearly full-term female fetus, which carries the possible death penalty. The jury found him not guilty of aggravated murder in Davis' death, a count that includes intent to kill with prior calculation. But they convicted him of a lesser charge of murder in her death.
Cutts also was convicted of abuse of a corpse, burglary and child endangering.
The couple's 2 1/2-year-old son, Blake, who was found home alone, 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."
For more than a week, Cutts, then an officer on the Canton police force, denied knowledge of her whereabouts as thousands searched in the area. He finally led authorities to the body, wrapped in a comforter and dumped in a park about 20 miles from her home.
Cutts, 30, testified for four hours Monday, saying tearfully that he accidentally killed Davis as he was trying to leave her house and she did not want him to go. He said he then panicked.
His attorneys said his actions in dumping the body and leaving the little boy alone did not prove he intended to kill Davis.
"Does that cause you to feel that he's a liar and a cheat and he's going to lie about everything else?" defense attorney Fernando Mack asked during his closing argument Tuesday. "None of that will tell you whether aggravated murder was committed on the morning of June 14th."
Defense attorneys also stressed that there was no forensic evidence linking Cutts to the death and that a medical examiner could not determine how Davis died because of decomposition from nine days of exposure in the summer heat.
But prosecutor Dennis Barr told the jury that Cutts' story made no sense and said a police officer would not hide a body unless he was covering up a criminal act. He noted Cutts' testimony that he sprayed down his truck after getting rid of Davis' body because of bugs on his windshield.
"Is that reasonable?" Barr asked. "Or is it more reasonable to think that he stopped and washed that truck to get rid of trace evidence?"
The prosecution's key witness, Cutts' longtime friend Myisha Ferrell, testified that Cutts picked her up in his truck the morning of June 14 with Davis' body in the back and help up his right arm to demonstrate how he killed her.
Jurors in the case against Cutts in the death of Davis worked with a five-page list of trial exhibits that they had requested from the judge. Jurors, who have been sequestered in a hotel at night, deliberated for four days.
Jurors didn't indicate why they needed the list detailing DNA evidence, crime-scene photos, investigation reports and phone records for Cutts and Davis. They expressed specific interest in what was inside Davis' purse found on the kitchen floor of her northeast Ohio home.
In an after-hours request Wednesday night, jurors asked the judge what might happen if they had all signed off on a verdict in one of the most serious charges - an aggravated murder count accusing Cutts of intentionally causing Davis' death.
Bobby Cutts Jr. was found guilty on nearly all the murder charges related to the deaths of Jessie Davis and her near full-term fetus.
Cutts was convicted of aggravated murder in the death of the nearly full-term female fetus, which carries the possible death penalty. The jury found him not guilty of aggravated murder in Davis' death, a count that includes intent to kill with prior calculation. But they convicted him of a lesser charge of murder in her death.
Cutts also was convicted of abuse of a corpse, burglary and child endangering.
The couple's 2 1/2-year-old son, Blake, who was found home alone, 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."
For more than a week, Cutts, then an officer on the Canton police force, denied knowledge of her whereabouts as thousands searched in the area. He finally led authorities to the body, wrapped in a comforter and dumped in a park about 20 miles from her home.
Cutts, 30, testified for four hours Monday, saying tearfully that he accidentally killed Davis as he was trying to leave her house and she did not want him to go. He said he then panicked.
His attorneys said his actions in dumping the body and leaving the little boy alone did not prove he intended to kill Davis.
"Does that cause you to feel that he's a liar and a cheat and he's going to lie about everything else?" defense attorney Fernando Mack asked during his closing argument Tuesday. "None of that will tell you whether aggravated murder was committed on the morning of June 14th."
Defense attorneys also stressed that there was no forensic evidence linking Cutts to the death and that a medical examiner could not determine how Davis died because of decomposition from nine days of exposure in the summer heat.
But prosecutor Dennis Barr told the jury that Cutts' story made no sense and said a police officer would not hide a body unless he was covering up a criminal act. He noted Cutts' testimony that he sprayed down his truck after getting rid of Davis' body because of bugs on his windshield.
"Is that reasonable?" Barr asked. "Or is it more reasonable to think that he stopped and washed that truck to get rid of trace evidence?"
The prosecution's key witness, Cutts' longtime friend Myisha Ferrell, testified that Cutts picked her up in his truck the morning of June 14 with Davis' body in the back and help up his right arm to demonstrate how he killed her.
Jurors in the case against Cutts in the death of Davis worked with a five-page list of trial exhibits that they had requested from the judge. Jurors, who have been sequestered in a hotel at night, deliberated for four days.
Jurors didn't indicate why they needed the list detailing DNA evidence, crime-scene photos, investigation reports and phone records for Cutts and Davis. They expressed specific interest in what was inside Davis' purse found on the kitchen floor of her northeast Ohio home.
In an after-hours request Wednesday night, jurors asked the judge what might happen if they had all signed off on a verdict in one of the most serious charges - an aggravated murder count accusing Cutts of intentionally causing Davis' death.
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