Posted on 06/21/2007 8:39:15 AM PDT by flutters
UNIONTOWN, Ohio - Several hundred people formed a line about two football fields long Thursday to get ready to help search for the neighborhood around the home of a missing woman who was 9 months pregnant when she disappeared.
Texas EquuSearch, an internationally active search team, brought in sonar equipment to northeast Ohio to check ponds and a remote-control airplane equipped with a camera to look for any sign of 26-year-old Jessie Davis.
Some of the approximately 500 volunteers waiting for the search to start brought their dogs or children. Many sipped donated bottles of water, and one man had a hiking stick. People continued to join the line along a sidewalk to sign up at a fire station to help.
"They're going to help us find Jessie, hopefully, bring her back safe," said the missing woman's younger sister, Whitney Davis.
"It's crazy. This is a high-profile case," she said.
Jessie Davis, whose baby is due July 3, was last heard from in a phone call with her mother on June 13. Two days later, her mother checked on her home in nearby Lake Township and found it in shambles, with the furniture overturned, a comforter missing and her 2-year-old grandson wandering around alone.
The little boy told investigators: "Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in rug." A pool of bleach was on the bedroom floor, and the contents of Davis' purse were scattered in the kitchen.
"We're holding onto that hope that maybe she's still alive out there," said EquuSearch director Tim Miller. "That would be the greatest thing in the world, but realistically, we know after a period of time that that normally doesn't happen."
Miller started EquuSearch his 16-year-old daughter, Laura, disappeared in Texas and was found dead 17 months later. Funded through donations, the group offers search-and-rescue training and uses specialized search equipment to help recover human remains around the world and search for missing children. It has worked on hundreds of missing persons cases, including the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, 18, in Aruba.
"We're probably looking at somewhat of a miracle in this case," Miller said. "We also know if that person is deceased out there it's very important we find them as quickly as we can find them so they can determine cause of death."
On Wednesday, for the second time in three days, investigators searched the home of the man who fathered Davis' 2-year-old son and unborn daughter, although authorities have repeatedly said Canton police officer Bobby Cutts Jr. is not a suspect.
Cutts, 30, told The (Canton) Repository he had nothing to do with Davis' disappearance, and that he has slept little and had no appetite since she vanished.
Sheriff's investigators and FBI agents carried out more than a dozen white cardboard boxes, a few brown bags and three large black plastic bags during a search that lasted more than three hours.
A legal order allowed investigators to obtain some of Davis' cell phone records, which are being reviewed, Stark County sheriff's Chief Deputy Rick Perez said at a news conference Wednesday.
Cutts, who also has two children with his wife, Kelly, said they are separated but have not filed for divorce and that his wife knew he had a relationship with Davis.
He said he last spoke with Davis at 8 p.m. on June 13, about 90 minutes before she last spoke with her mother.
Cutts' mother, Renee Horne, told the Repository that agents at her son's home were looking for Davis' cell phone and a quilt missing from the Davis's home.
Horne said FBI agents questioned her son twice Wednesday, and read him his Miranda rights during the second interview. Investigators also took Cutts' two cell phones, Horne said.
Meanwhile, authorities said DNA tests would not be finished until next week on a newborn girl left on a porch about 45 miles away from Davis' home. Authorities are trying to determine if the infant, less than 24 hours old when it was found Monday evening in Wooster, is related to Davis. A bottle and can of formula left in the basket with the newborn were sent to be tested for fingerprints or any other evidence.
On its Web site, the FBI lists the case as a kidnapping. But FBI spokesman Scott Wilson in Cleveland said the label is standard whenever foul play is a possibility, and the agency doesn't know if Davis was abducted or not.
The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Davis' whereabouts. EquuSearch added a $5,000 reward.
Thursday morning, the volunteers gathered at the firehouse near a sign that read, "Pray for Jessie," to help EquuSearch's efforts.
"My heart goes out to them," said Lisa Dillon, 47, who took a vacation day from her state job to aid in the search. "I just want to help."
That Bobby Cutts is a piece of work.
She evidently has a rock-solid alibi. I know this because this was the only story on Fox this morning (must be a slow news day).
I think Mommy had a little breakdown over the fact that the father is a married cop and now she’s going to be alone with two kids with no fathers around.
Interesting about the abandoned baby.
A little slow on the uptake, wasn’t she? She might have figured that out after the first baby.
‘to help search for the neighborhood’
Wow! Not only is the woman missing but apparently so is the neighborhood as well.
I believe that supposedly both he and his wife have alibis. However, it doesn't mean he or his wife didn't get someone else to it- in fact it make sense since the little boy would recognize his father, but a stranger hired to do his bidding.
I think he agreed to pick up the son at 10 but sent somebody that she was familiar with. That explains why she opened the door. I can agree that a friend would do the deed for him, but an enemy would not leave the son behind. Taking him would be the ultimate message. But, to allow the little boy to be left alone is an awful thing to consider.
I think it had to be a man or more than one person who did it - if she was dead (rolled up in comforter) - because a woman could probably not have handled the weight. I think the 2 yr. old can give good info, - he had to have seen the perp. - was it anyone he knew? were they wearing something over their face? was it a man or a woman?
Why do they now say it was “possibly” Cutts’ unborn child - was she leading him to believe it was his since he was good about helping out with the 2 yr. old?
Just a comment on the wife - even if she didn’t know about all of this - and just found out - I don’t know why she’d kill the woman -especially since she is a mother herself - I’d go after hubby (kidding.)
Bobby Cutts Jr. at Plentyoffish.com, a dating site.
DALAW150’s profile indicates that he’s interested only in meeting a woman to “hang out,” yet this is what he wrote under the heading “First Date”:
I WOULD LIKE TO DO WHATEVER THE OTHER PERSON WOULD LIKE TO DO FOLLOWED BY DINNER AND POSSIBLE DRINKS. THE NIGHT COULD END THERE OR IT COULD LEAD TO A LONG DRIVE OR LONG WALK BEFORE WE CALL IT A NIGHT.OR...
His main profile pic when you first see the page is this shot of Cutts wearing a towel.
On June 6, Cutts had an “estranged” wife with two children. He had Nikki Giavasis, and one child by her. Jessie Marie Davis had little Blake, and Chloe was on the way — in less than a month. Yet Cutts either created or went to his Plentyoffish.com “DALAW150” profile and uploaded three new photos. Then, less than a week later, he added the topless shot. And just two days after the beefcake pic was put online, Jessie Marie Davis vanished, seemingly without a trace.
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