May 18, 2013
A Kannapolis man has been convicted in a 1981 rape case and faces up to 140 years in prison.
The jury in a Mecklenburg County court deliberated for nearly three hours before finding 62-year-old Roger Dale Honeycutt guilty on Friday of two counts of second-degree rape, two counts of second-degree sexual offense and two counts of first-degree burglary.
The case was reopened in 2002, and a DNA match was found in 2010. That match was the key evidence because neither victim could identify her attacker. The two women both took the witness stand during the trial.
Defense attorney Bill Soukup argued that the DNA evidence had degraded over the 32 years since the incident occurred, and also said there was no evidence placing Honeycutt in Charlotte in 1981.
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