[OH] Baby Blake's words may help convict cop dad of mom's murder

Cutts jury will hear what his toddler said
The Plain Dealer
James Ewinger
February 02, 2008
A Stark County judge will allow witnesses to testify about the words of Jessie Davis' toddler son when the boy's father goes on trial Monday for her murder. Bobby Cutts Jr., a 30-year-old former Canton police officer, could get a death sentence if found guilty for the June slaying of Davis and her unborn daughter, also believed to have been fathered by Cutts. Common Pleas Judge Charles E. Brown Jr. ruled on a list of motions during a hearing Friday. Cutts was not married to Davis, 26, but fathered the boy named Blake, who is now 3. He was married to another woman at the time and also has a child with an aspiring model now living in California. Blake is important to the case because he has been quoted as telling his grandmother: "Mommy's crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in the rug." Patty Porter, Davis' mother, testified at the Friday hearing that those were the child's first words when she went to Davis' Plain Township home June 15 in search of her daughter. Sgt. Eric Weisburn, a Stark County sheriff's deputy investigating the disappearance that day, also testified that the little boy made a similar statement to him as the two worked on a coloring book to relax the child... Porter said Blake made no mention of Cutts that day, but Weisburn quoted the boy as saying, "Daddy's mad," but Blake did not elaborate. The boy's statements are hearsay, but Brown said he will allow Porter and the deputy to testify about it under a legal exception to the hearsay rule for "excited utterances" by people at crime scenes... Those jurors, sworn in Wednesday, also are likely to hear about affairs that Cutts may have had with two other women, one of whom may have had a terminated pregnancy. Cutts' lawyers sought to limit the women's testimony, because they said the information is inflammatory and could prejudice a jury... Brown also will allow the state to use the tape of an interview that a Canton Repository reporter had with Cutts before he was charged with the slaying. In it, Cutts denied any knowledge of Davis' disappearance... Cutts led police to Davis' body June 23, and also told co-defendant Myisha Ferrell that he killed the woman...

(The woman?)