A Stark County jury in the case of Bobby Cutts Jr. on Feb. 15 found Cutts not guilty on a charge of aggravated murder in the death of Jessie Marie Davis but guilty of a lesser charge of murder.
However, the jury found Cutts, 30, guilty of aggravated murder in the death of baby Chloe, Davis' nearly full-term female fetus, for which he could receive the death penalty, life in prison without parole or life with parole eligibility after 20, 25 or 30 years.
The jury found him not guilty of aggravated murder in Davis' death, a count that includes intent to kill with prior calculation and design. But they convicted him of a lesser charge of murder in her death.
Davis had worked at Allstate Insurance on Executive Parkway in Hudson.
Cutts, a former Canton police officer, also was found guilty on charges of aggravated burglary, two counts of gross abuse of a corpse and child endangering.
The rulings came in the Stark County Common Pleas courtroom of Judge Charles E. Brown Jr.
During the trial, Cutts testified through sobs that he accidentally killed Davis with an elbow to her throat as he was trying to leave her house last June. He said he then panicked and dumped her body in a park.
Prosecutors told the jury that Cutts killed Davis, 26, and the unborn baby in June 2007 at her Lake Township home to get out of child support payments for a fourth child.
The couple's 2 1/2-year-old son Blake, was found home alone.
According to testimony, Cutts led authorities to the body, wrapped in a comforter and dumped in a remote area in Hampton Hills Metro Park, about 20 miles from her home.
The bodies, according to the Summit County Medical Examiner's office, were badly decomposed, and the examiner could not identify a specific cause of death for Davis.
From staff reports
from the Hudson Hub-Times
and The Review in Alliance.