BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhuanet)-- A former Canton, Ohio, police officer was spared the death penalty and sentenced Wednesday to at least 57 years in prison for killing his pregnant lover and her fetus, according to media reports.

    Bobby Lee Cutts Jr., 30, will be 87 by the time he becomes eligible for parole.

    Cutts claimed the death of Jessie Davis from an elbow to the throat last June was an accident during an argument. He said he dumped her body in a park in a panic.

    Jessie was 26 and nine months pregnant when she disappeared last June. Her body, and that of her unborn child, were found 10 days later at a state park in northeastern Ohio.

    For more than a week, Cutts denied knowledge of her whereabouts as thousands searched in the area amid blanket national cable TV coverage. He finally led authorities to the body, wrapped in a comforter.

    Cutts asked the jury to spare his life and offered a tearful apology at his sentencing hearing Tuesday.

    "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm asking you to spare my life," he said. "To imagine that I was responsible for the death of Jessie, the mother of my children and my unborn daughter, is beyond any words that I can express," Cutts added, reading from a handwritten statement.

    Jurors spared Cutts, 30, the death penalty in the most serious charge, an aggravated murder count in the death of the fetus.

    For the aggravated murder charge in the death of the unborn baby, the judge accepted the jury's recommendation of life in prison with parole eligibility after 30 years.

    Cutts will appeal his conviction because of the inconsistency of his being convicted of aggravated murder in the fetus' death and guilty of the lesser crime of murder in the death.

(Agencies)