Ohio ? A former police officer was sentenced Wednesday to at least 57 years in prison for killing his pregnant lover and her fetus.

Jurors in Canton spared Bobby Cutts Jr. the death penalty on the most serious charge, an aggravated murder count in the death of the fetus. He could spend up to life in prison on those and other charges.

Cutts, 30, had sobbed on the witness stand when he claimed the death of 26-year-old 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. He returned to the stand after his conviction to ask jurors to spare his life.

Prosecutors argued that Cutts killed Davis and the nearly full-term girl at her home in northeast Ohio to avoid making child support payments.

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.