By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

PORTLAND – The knife that pierced Morgan McDuffee’s heart was 5 or 6 inches long, Maine’s deputy medical examiner testified Wednesday.

Dr. Michael Ferenc described to the Cumberland County Superior Court jury the stab wounds the Bates College senior suffered before dying at 3:40 a.m. March 3, 2002.

His testimony came during the third day of the second trial of Brandon Thongsavanh, 22, of Lewiston, who is charged with murder in the street brawl in Lewiston.

Ferenc performed an autopsy on McDuffee the day after he died. The autopsy showed that the 22-year-old from Lexington, Mass., was stabbed five times.

Four of the blows were between 2 to 4½ inches deep to the stomach and back. Those would not have been immediately life threatening, Ferenc said.

The fatal blow was where a knife was plunged 5 to 6 inches into the chest, passing between McDuffee’s ribs, nicking his lung and perforating his heart, Ferenc said.

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese showed Ferenc two pieces of bagged evidence, a box cutter and a small knife. She asked whether either could deliver the fatal blow.

No, Ferenc said, it would have required a blade of 5 or 6 inches.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney David Van Dyke, Ferenc agreed he did not know the size of the knife, or even if more than one was used in the attack. The wound that killed McDuffee involved a blade at least five inches long, he said.

Van Dyke then showed Ferenc a picture of Chad Aube, a 23-year-old construction worker from Auburn, who the defense maintains killed McDuffee in a fight between Bates students and local youths just a few hundred feet from McDuffee’s apartment on Main Street.

Did a person of Aube’s size have the force needed to deliver the fatal stabbing, Van Dyke asked.

Yes, the doctor answered.

Marchese resumed questioning. Motioning to Thongsavanh she asked, “Do you believe he has sufficient body weight to inflict” the knife deep enough to kill McDuffee?

Yes, Ferenc said.

Van Dyke got back up.

“Does Ms. Marchese?”

Yes, the doctor answered.

Others who testified Wednesday for the prosecution included Lewiston police Detective Brian O’Malley, who interviewed Thongsavanh hours after McDuffee was slain.

Playing an audio tape of that interview, O’Malley told Thongsavanh they brought him to the police station because witnesses said he was at the scene of the stabbing. Thongsavanh said he was not. Other than going to the store at 8 p.m. to buy cigarettes, he was home all night with his finance, Dori St. Germain, according to what Thongsavanh told O’Malley on the tape.

Wendy Bilodeau, who worked that night at the Sabattus Street Getty Mart where Thongsavanh was a regular, testified that Thongsavanh did not come into the store that night. She said she only saw his fiancee, who purchased three six-packs of beer and cigarettes.

Also testifying Wednesday was Andrew Gill, formerly of Lewiston. At 2:30 a.m. March 3, 2002, Gill was in his third-floor bedroom at his Main Street home, he said. The view from his window overlooked the scene of the stabbing. Noise from the street drew him to his window, Gill said. He heard people “being loud.” No fighting happened, he said, until after a sport utility vehicle and a pickup truck pulled up along Riverside Street.

People got out of the vehicles and joined the group, at which point a brawl began. Gill said the fight ended with someone yelling: “You killed my brother!”

People ran back to the vehicles and took off. Gill said he woke his parents who called the police.

In 2003, Thongsavanh was convicted in Androscoggin County Superior Court of murdering McDuffee, but last October the Maine Supreme Judicial Court overturned the guilty verdict. It ruled that the jury was biased by repeated references to a T-shirt Thongsavanh was reportedly wearing the night of the stabbing. The shirt made an obscene reference to Jesus.