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Tuesday, May 21, 2013 | 11:54 p.m.

Posted: 6:54 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013

2nd victim testifies in cold case rape trial

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2nd victim testifies in cold case rape trial  photo
2nd victim testifies in cold case rape trial

By Mark Becker

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —

The prosecutor expects to call a second rape victim to testify Wednesday in the cold case rape trial of a man who was not identified as a suspect for decades.

It took almost 30 years for police to make a case against Roger Honeycutt -- and another year for his case to come to court. But on Tuesday the first of two rape victims took the stand and told her story.

The woman who's now 55 and living out of state told jurors in February 1981 she was five months pregnant and living with her husband and 2-year-old daughter in an apartment on Eastway Drive near Central Avenue.

She was asleep on the sofa when she woke up with a man straddling her.

He told her "don't scream and you won't get hurt."

She begged "I'm pregnant please don't hurt the baby."

She never saw her attacker's face and when he finally left she said "I screamed and screamed and screamed. ..."

Long after her screams had died away, cold case detectives found DNA evidence in her rape and another less than a month earlier that led them to Honeycutt in her case and another from January 1981.

Honeycutt has denied raping the women and his attorney told jurors in his opening statement that police have only a partial DNA match that won't be enough to say that he was the attacker. And he will build his case on that doubt.

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