Ex-officer spared death penalty for killing ex-lover, unborn baby

Parole will be possible after 57 years.

CANTON (AP) — The mother of a pregnant woman killed by her police officer lover says she knew from the start that he was to blame for the death but she has forgiven him as he heads to prison for at least 57 years.

“I never in my heart wanted to believe you could hurt her, but in my soul I knew you had,” a sobbing Patty Porter told Bobby Cutts Jr., 30, at his emotionally charged sentencing Wednesday.

The comments came after a jury decided to spare Cutts the death penalty for the aggravated murder of the unborn female fetus. He also was convicted of the lesser charge of murder for killing Jessie Davis, 26.

Her family, some looking at Cutts to say he had ruined lives, addressed the court before a judge handed down the sentence: up to life in prison with a chance for parole after 57 years.

Porter offered forgiveness, in part because she must rear Blake, the 3-year-old son of Davis and Cutts and the first person to cast suspicion on his father.

“I would have never been able to raise Blake and hate you,” Porter said as Cutts’ family quietly cried and court deputies passed around tissue boxes to the families of both Cutts and Davis.

“I serve an amazing God, Bobby, a God that forgives and heals and restores people. I want you to know today that I do forgive you and I know that’s only through him I’m able to do that. I pray you find him and you find that forgiveness that nobody else in this room can give you.”

Cutts had cried on the witness stand when he claimed Davis died from an elbow to the throat last June in 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 intentionally 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.

For more than a week, Cutts 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.