Officials Search House of Missing Mom's Boyfriend

CANTON – Authorities on Wednesday night swarmed the house of the boyfriend of Jessie Davis, the 9-months-pregnant Ohio mom who disappeared last week, according to The Repository.

FBI agents and sheriff's deputies were serving a search warrant on the home of Bobby Cutts Jr. and were looking for a quilt and Davis' cell phone, Cutts' mother told the Canton, Ohio newspaper. It was the second time in three days that his house has been searched.

Click here to read that report.

The FBI has questioned Cutts — a 30-year-old Canton police officer — twice today, and read him his Miranda rights the second time, according to his mother, Renee Horne. She added that agents took two cell phones belonging to Cutts.

Sheriff's deputies blocked off about a 100-yard stretch of the street in front of the home as FBI agents and deputies carried more than a dozen boxes and three large black bags.

Cutts, the father of Davis' 2-year-old son Blake, and likely the father of her unborn daughter, said it's been a "nightmare" since Davis vanished last week and he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

But though he isn't a suspect in the Davis case, police haven't told him he's been cleared, either.

"I would be dumb and naive to think they weren't treating me as a suspect just [based] on the different things I've had to go through the last couple of days," Cutts told the paper. "Like they've said to the media, me nor my wife are suspects, but I don't feel like we've been treated as that's 100 percent true."

The news comes after the FBI announced a $10,000 reward for any information leading to Davis' disappearance.

Authorities also have obtained phone records requested by subpoena, Stark County chief deputy Rick Perez told reporters at a news conference. He didn't elaborate.

Perez also said that DNA tests done on a day-old infant girl abandoned in a basket on a doorstep near where Davis, 26, lives and was last seen will take about two weeks to come back.

Tim Miller of Texas Equusearch said Davis' family had enlisted his services in trying to find the missing woman.

Miller told reporters in a press conference Wednesday that sonar equipment had been brought in for possible water searches, and the public's help was needed.

"We're holding onto that hope that maybe she's still alive out there," Miller said. "Our goal is to bring her back alive."

Whitney Davis, who appeared with Miller, said the family was "relieved" to have Equusearch participating in trying to find her sister. She said their mother was "distraught" and "sad" over Jessie's disappearance.

"She wants her daughter back," said Whitney Davis.

Cutts said he last spoke with Davis on Wednesday at 8 p.m. Her mother, Patricia Porter, has said she last talked to her at about 9:30 that same night.

The sheriff's office released a surveillance camera photo of Davis pushing a shopping cart with Blake in it at an Acme supermarket in North Canton, where she lives. The time on the camera reads 6:24 p.m. Wednesday.

"The last five days have been a nightmare. It won't end," Cutts, a Canton police officer, told The Repository. "Anybody who knows me knows I’m [normally] joking around and laughing. I try to have fun and make everyone else laugh. It’s just been hell.”

He said he has slept little — only about "30 seconds at a time," according to the newspaper — and has no appetite.

• Click here to read the entire interview in The Repository.

Police have said Cutts is fully cooperating in the investigation, and they have no suspects in the case. Authorities searched Cutts' home in Canton in northeast Ohio over the weekend and again Monday night.

Cutts told the newspaper that he and his wife, Kelly, are separated but haven't filed for divorce, and she knew about his relationship with Davis.

“Hopefully, she’ll be found alive,” Cutts told The Repository.

A local law enforcement source told FOX News that agents tested Kelly Cutts' car on Monday for blood and fluids and the tests came back negative.

Bobby Cutts also voluntarily brought his pick-up truck to a mutually agreed-upon location so that agents could do tests on that, the source told FOX. Those tests came back negative too.

The source told FOX that Bobby Cutts is a model officer and speculated that police are trying to frame him — potentially because Cutts is a key witness in a federal racial-discrimination lawsuit against the Canton Police Department set to go to trial this year.

Kelly Cutts' mother, Brenda Schaub, told FOX News that the FBI went to her daughter's place of work on Tuesday to interview her. Schaub said her daughter and Bobby Cutts were on good terms, Bobby was never violent with his wife and he was a loving father to their daughter.

Kelly, according to Schaub, was at her parents' house last Wednesday night and went to work on Thursday.

Meanwhile, police are awaiting the results of DNA tests on a newborn baby girl found in a wicker basket in a town near North Canton, where Davis lives and apparently disappeared. Davis is due to give birth July 3.

The day-old baby girl, her umbilical cord tied off with a rubber band, was found on a school nurse's doorstep Monday night, five days after Davis was last heard from and in a rural area just 45 miles away.

A DNA sample was taken Tuesday from the infant and given to Stark County authorities investigating the disappearance, officials said. A bottle and a can of formula found with her in the basket also were sent for testing at a state lab in Columbus.

The baby was in good condition, Perez said.

Thomas Maurer, sheriff in neighboring Wayne County, does not believe there is a connection between the baby, who was less than 24 hours old when she was found, and Davis.

"We're using every caution we can" to identify the baby or eliminate the possibility that she is related to Davis, Maurer said.

The infant was taken to Wooster Community Hospital, where her DNA was collected using a mouth swab, he said. The test results aren't expected until early next week, said Robert Budgake, director of the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab.

The baby was dressed in a sleeper. The wicker basket contained a blanket, a can of baby formula and a bottle containing formula, but there was no note, Maurer said.

Davis' toddler son is possibly the only eyewitness in the case. He has told investigators and the family that "Mommy's in the rug."

Cutts had an amicable relationship with Davis and is a good father who shared parenting duties, said John Miller, president of the Canton patrolman's union.

Cutts, who is on leave from his job, juggled parenthood with the demands of his patrol job on the midnight shift, Miller said, and also coaches youth baseball, basketball and football.

"He's a good officer. He's got no problems at work. He treats people well," Miller said.

In 1998, Cutts pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge and was sentenced to three years' probation after a former girlfriend accused him of breaking a door jamb and forcing his way into their home, causing her to fear for her safety, according to a police report from nearby Jackson Township.

Davis, who planned to name her unborn daughter Chloe, was reported missing on Friday when her mother went to Davis' house to check on her and found her grandson alone, wearing a dirty diaper in a home with furniture askew. A pool of bleach was on the bedroom floor, and the contents of Davis' purse were scattered in the kitchen.

Blake told investigators: "Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in the rug."

Her cell phone and a comforter were missing.

Davis' family has declined to talk about her relationship with Cutts. Her father, Ned, held back tears Tuesday in an interview, saying he's trying to block out all emotion and focus on his daughter's safe return.

"I'm a dad that wants his daughter back," he said.

Miller accused the Stark County Sheriff's Office of waiting too long to retrieve Davis' cell phone records. The sheriff's office has not discussed whether any clues have been found in the records and, during the Tuesday news conference, Perez gave no answers to repeated questions about the delay in checking them.

About two years after his conviction in the disorderly conduct case, Cutts was hired by the Canton Police Department.

Cutts' personnel file shows he won an appeal to overturn his firing in 2003 when authorities conducting a drug raid on his cousin's home found Cutts' handgun hidden under a mattress. Canton police officials accused Cutts of giving the gun to his cousin for protection and said Cutts was lying when he reported the gun stolen.

A federal arbitrator ordered the city to reinstate the officer, saying Canton police had not proven the allegation.

FOX News' Jeff Goldblatt, Catherine Donaldson-Evans and The Associated Press contributed to this report.