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The 58-year-old rape victim wept Thursday as she left the courtroom.
She had just finished telling a jury about how she’d been sexually assaulted 32 years ago at her apartment in Charlotte.
The woman testified that she’d fallen asleep on the sofa while watching television when she realized a stranger was in her apartment. She felt a hand cover her mouth.
“I was told do not scream and I wouldn’t be hurt,” she recalled. “I was in total shock. I don’t think I said anything … I was too frightened.”
Roger Dale Honeycutt is on trial for the 1981 rapes of two Charlotte women. Three decades after the crimes, police say they obtained DNA linking the 62-year-old Kannapolis man to both sexual assaults.
The woman, who was 26 years old when she was raped, told jurors that she couldn’t believe that her attacker wouldn’t harm her.
“It occurred to me that this might be the end,” she said.
Her assailant, she testified, had instructed her not to look at him.
She recalled what the man said to her as he left after the sexual assault.
“He told me to go back to sleep and pretend it never happened,” she said.
The other rape victim testified Tuesday. She was 23 years old and five months pregnant when the sexual assault took place. She too was told not to scream and she wouldn’t be hurt.
Now 55 years old, she told jurors how she pleaded with her attacker. “I’m pregnant. Please don’t hurt my baby,” she recalled telling the man.
Neither rape victim identified Honeycutt as the assailant.
But a forensic DNA analyst testified Thursday that DNA from the two rape kits matched Honeycutt’s DNA profile.
Eve Rossi, who works at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s crime lab, told jurors that there’s a one in 36 billion chance that the DNA in one of the rapes belonged to someone other than Honeycutt. She said there was a 1 in 16 million chance the DNA in the other rape belonged to someone other than Honeycutt.
Defense attorney Bill Soukup has challenged the value of the partial DNA profiles being used to link Honeycutt to the rapes.
The prosecution is expected to rest its case Friday. Honeycutt is not expected to take the witness stand in his defense.
