"N" Search of Ecstasy

BY ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CANTON, Ohio – Questions about Bobby Cutts Jr. lead quickly to the women and children in his life.

There’s his oldest daughter, Taylor, born out of wedlock to a girlfriend in 1997.

There’s his younger daughter, Breonna, born in 2001, also out of wedlock: he and the child’s mother married shortly thereafter.


There’s his son, 2-year-old Blake, born after an affair with another girlfriend while separated from his wife. Relatives say he would have had a fourth child, Chloe, had the child been born as scheduled early next month.

Instead, Cutts is accused of murdering the unborn girl along with her pregnant mother, Jessie Davis, also the mother of Blake.

“There’s a lot of little children being absolutely devastated over this,” Davis’ mother, Patricia Porter, said Monday outside Canton Municipal Court. “We can’t forget them.”

Cutts, 30, a Canton police officer, had earlier Monday been ordered held on $5 million bond.

Cutts’ former high school classmate accused of lying to investigators, Myisha Ferrell, 29, was ordered held on $500,000 bond. Her attorney declined comment.

Davis, 26, was missing for about a week before her body was found in a northeast Ohio park Saturday, still carrying the unborn baby she was due to deliver July 3.

Cutts is accused of killing Davis and the fetus June 14 at her home in nearby Lake Township. Ohio law allows a murder charge against someone accused of killing a fetus that would have been able to live outside the womb.

Cutts’ attorney, Bradley Iams, declined to discuss details of the charges against his client or anything Cutts said to him during the brief court appearance.

Cutts’ stepmother, Barbara Cutts, on Monday called her stepson a generous man good with kids who coached youth soccer, basketball and football. She and Cutts’ father last saw him Saturday at his house in Plain Township outside North Canton, where he was drained and exhausted.

“It’s very hard to accept,” said Barbara Cutts, 46, a nurse’s aide. “A lot of people are looking at him like a bad person, but he’s not, he really isn’t.”

Cutts met Taylor’s mother, Nikki Giavasis, when both attended nearby Walsh University. Taylor has lived with Giavasis for most of her life in California, but Cutts challenged the custody arrangement in 2005.

Hours before Cutts’ arraignment, Stark County Family Court Judge David Stucki dismissed a custody case here, citing the charges against Cutts as one factor in his decision, said Jeffrey Jakmides, a lawyer representing Giavasis. Another custody dispute is ongoing in a California court, he said.

“The family has deliberately tried not to burden her (Taylor) with this,” Jakmides said, referring to the murder case. “They’ve tried as much as possible to keep her from the media storm.”

Court documents had criticized both parents for poor judgment.

“The fact is Cutts fathered a child with another woman while he was married to his present wife,” Jakmides said in an August 2006 filing in Stark County Common Pleas Court.

Susan Hulit Burns, Taylor’s court-appointed guardian, said she was bothered by how often Giavasis switched apartments and daycare providers, questioning the effect on Taylor. She said she was also bothered that Cutts “conceived a child during his separation” from his wife, according to a June 2006 court filing.

In 1998, Cutts was accused of breaking into Giavasis’ home while she was inside with former NBA player Shawn Kemp of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cutts pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge and was sentenced to three years’ probation.

Cutts married his wife, Kelly, in July 2001, two months after Breonna was born.

They separated in 2003 while Cutts faced criminal charges after his police supervisors alleged he had given his gun to a drug-dealing cousin.

Cutts was acquitted and an arbitrator ordered Canton to rehire him with back pay.

During the separation, he had an affair with Jessie Davis and conceived Blake, born in December 2004. On Monday, Porter was granted temporary custody of the boy in Stark County Family Court.

It was Blake who provided investigators searching for Davis their first clues earlier this month, saying: “Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy’s in rug.”

Porter found the boy home alone on June 15, Davis missing, furniture toppled in the bedroom and a pool of bleach on the floor.

Family members have told Blake that his mother is in heaven, Porter said.

“He has an old cell phone and he calls her and talks to her,” she said.

Porter said Monday she’s not sure who Cutts is anymore.

“We knew Bobby Cutts up to a certain day in this and from that day on we did not know him at all,” she said. “I don’t think my daughter ever knew him either.”

Cutts played football, wearing No. 9, at GlenOak High School, a suburban school whose most famous graduate is goth rocker Marilyn Manson.

After he became a police officer, Cutts also played semiprofessional football with the Massillon Bengals in the Ohio Valley League and in 2005 was drafted by the Canton Legends of the Atlantic Indoor Football League.

Cutts played softball the evening of June 13 and then spent about four hours at a sports bar in Canton. He told The (Canton) Repository last week that he called Davis that night – the day before he’s accused of killing her – and it was the last time they spoke.

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