Roger Dale Honeycutt, accused of raping two Charlotte women more than three decades ago, goes on trial Monday.

The sexual assaults occurred about a month apart – on Jan. 24, 1981, and Feb. 21, 1981.

Mecklenburg Assistant District Attorney Barry Cook has filed a motion to try Honeycutt on both of the sexual assaults during the trial. The 62-year-old Kannapolis man was indicted in each case on charges of second-degree rape, second-degree sex offense and first-degree burglary.

One of the rape victims, a 23-year-old woman who was five months pregnant, told investigators the sexual attack occurred after she had fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room of her home. Her husband and daughter were asleep upstairs.

She was awakened by a man straddling her body. If she didn’t scream, he told her, he wouldn’t hurt her. He then sexually assaulted her while asking her if she was pregnant, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.

Nearly 30 years later, on Oct. 18, 2010, detectives with CMPD’s Sexual Assault Cold Case Unit arrested Honeycutt at his home in Kannapolis and charged him with the Feb. 21, 1981, rape.

A DNA match, police said, had linked Honeycutt to the sexual assault.

The victim had gone to the hospital after the attack, where a rape kit was collected. But back then, police had no suspect to compare the DNA evidence against. So the trail went cold.

But in 2006, CMPD’s newly created Sexual Assault Cold Case Unit and crime lab submitted the DNA to a national database that has millions of offender profiles.

Four years later, in August 2010, they got a match, police say.

Honeycutt was a registered sex offender on probation, according to court records. He had been sentenced to federal prison in 2005 for sexual exploitation of a minor and was released in 2008.

In January 2012, Honeycutt was charged with the rape of a 31-year-old woman that occurred on Jan. 24, 1981. Again, detectives say, they had a DNA match.

Police say Honeycutt broke into a woman’s apartment through a sliding glass door and sexually assaulted her on the sofa.

The two rapes Honeycutt is accused of committing are among the oldest cases in which detectives with the sexual assault cold case squad have filed charges.

Honeycutt is jailed on $150,000 bond while awaiting trial.

The two rape victims are expected to testify during the trial.

Defense attorney Bill Soukup, during an interview in 2012, said: “My client hasn’t been convicted. As of now, he’s presumed innocent.”

Soukup, in a recent interview about Honeycutt’s upcoming trial, told the Observer: “The jurors will have to look at the evidence and make their own decisions.”