Missing Ohio Woman’s Body Found, Suspect in Custody

CANTON, Ohio – Authorities searched the apartment of a high school classmate of a man charged with the murder of a pregnant woman* who vanished from her home more than a week ago, a newspaper reported. A massive search for the woman ended Saturday when authorities announced they found a body they believed to be that of 26-year-old Jesse Davis. Bobby Cutts Jr. (pictured), a police officer they suspect is the father of the unborn child, was arrested on two counts of murder.Davis was due to deliver a baby girl on July 3 but was reported missing after her mother found Davis’ 2-year-old son home alone, bedroom furniture toppled and bleach spilled on the floor.The boy gave investigators their first clues. "Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy’s in rug," the boy said.Thousands of volunteers had searched for Davis over several days, while investigators continued to question Cutts, 30, who is the father of Davis’ son but is married to another woman.<a href=”http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=49750&cl=3140685&ch=68276&src=news”>Source w/ Video</a> (Yahoo!)<a href=”http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070624/ap_on_re_us/missing_woman" target=”_blank”>Source</a> w/ Text (Yahoo!)<a href=”http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/06/officials_search_bobby_cutts_j.html”>Cleveland Metro</a>* According to the latest figures released by the US Census Bureau, while interracial marriages in United States have more than doubled since 1980—from 651,000 to 1.4 million—they account for only 2.5 percent of all marriages. However, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago says Americans increasingly accept the practice. As late as 1990, it found that 64 percent of non-black adults opposed black-white intermarriage, but in the most recent survey, the number dropped to 32 percent.In Utah, which is 90 percent white, the overall rate of intermarriage—five percent—is higher than the national average. Since blacks are fewer than one percent of the population, most interracial marriages involve whites with Hispanics or Asians. Still, 68 percent of Utah’s black men who married in 2000 chose white women, up from 11 percent in 1990. Only 23 percent of black men in the state who married wed black women, a 13 percent decrease since 1990.This doesn’t sit well with the women. “Many African-American women complain that is why they can’t find any eligible men—because they have been grabbed by a different racial group,” says France Davis, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Salt Lake City. “Many [black women end up frustrated and ultimately throwing in the towel as far as a meaningful relationship and marriage.”Nationally, only 95,000 white men are married to black women, while three times as many black men are married to white women. Prof. Joel Wade of Bucknell University says—rather fancifully—that this is a legacy of slavery. “White plantation owners were able to force black female slaves to have sex with them,” he explains. “[Black women have that history in mind, that associating with white males is perpetuating the master/slave image. There is a reluctance on their part to even consider it.” [Brooke Adams, Barriers to Interracial Marriage Falling, Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 13, 2002.

2007-06-24