By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

PORTLAND – Common sense will lead the jury to convict a 22-year-old Lewiston man of knifing Bates College senior Morgan McDuffee, Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese predicted Tuesday in her closing arguments.

The defense attorney disagreed. David Van Dyke countered, “Brandon Thongsavanh was in a bad place at a bad time and finds himself at the end of a bad rumor started by Chad Aube.” He insisted Aube, 23, of Lewiston killed the economics major from Lexington, Mass., during a fight between Bates students and Auburn youths.

He warned that the stakes are high. If the nine men and three women on the jury convict Thongsavanh, he said, “You better not be wrong,” or a second tragedy would occur “at the hands of the state.”

McDuffee was stabbed five times during a brawl on Main Street in Lewiston early on March 3, 2002.

Thongsavanh was convicted of murder by an Androscoggin County Superior Court jury in 2003, but the verdict was overturned by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on grounds the jury was biased.

The jury in Thongsavanh’s second murder trial will resume deliberations today in Cumberland County Superior Court, a day after hearing both sides present dramatic final arguments.

McDuffee died after responding to a fight to help his classmates, Marchese said. “The last thing he ever expected to find at a fistfight was a knife.

“In comes this man who ends Morgan McDuffee’s life by stabbing him,” she said, motioning to Thongsavanh, who listened quietly.

The stabbing took away a fiance, a son, a brother and a lacrosse team captain, Marchese said.

Testimony during the three-week trial showed that the only person seen with a knife before, during or after the fight was Thongsavanh. Aube, Mike Levesque and Nate Tao all testified that the last person seen fighting with McDuffee was Thongsavanh, Marchese said. Tao saw Thongsavanh approach McDuffee, put his hands up, then saw Thongsavanh stab McDuffee in the chest and back, she said.

If police wanted to quickly pin the killing on someone, as the defense alleged, Aube would have been the perfect suspect, Marchese said.

“Chad Aube started things up” by throwing the first punch, she said. Aube acknowledged he was fighting with McDuffee and has a criminal record, the prosecutor told jurors.

Aube may not be a person jurors would want at their Thanksgiving table, for a brother or for a son-in-law, “however, Chad Aube is not a killer,” Marchese said. “Chad was never seen with a knife. This is a stabbing. To stab someone you need a knife.”

She also reminded jurors that Thongsavanh gave “a phony alibi” and misrepresented to police what he was wearing the night of the slaying.

McDuffee’s death “was a senseless, brutal killing” committed by Thongsavanh because he was “drunk, bored and he was violent,” Marchese said. “The evidence compels a verdict of guilty.”

Van Dyke countered that it would be a tragedy to convict an innocent man.

He said Aube told someone that Thongsavanh committed the crime, “and the seed of an urban myth was born.”

If Thongsavanh stabbed McDuffee, Van Dyke asked, why didn’t he have any of McDuffee’s blood on him? Why didn’t any Bates students see him do it? Why would he go to Justin Asselin’s home “where there were people and lights, where he’d be seen by many people?”

Hours after the killing, Thongsavanh woke up and let police into his home. He wasn’t thinking about “the defense of his life,” Van Dyke said.

He also said Tao lied to police to protect Thongsavanh, then Tao “lied to incriminate Mr. Thongsavanh.”

Looking at the jury, Van Dyke asked, “Would you buy a used car in Uncle Henry’s from Nate Tao? If not, don’t convict this man of murder based on (Tao’s) testimony.”

He asked jurors to look at Thongsavanh. Less than half did.

Thongsavanh “crawled his way out of a hardscrabble” Lewiston-Auburn life, he told jurors. “Set this innocent man free.”

Justice Ellen Gorman dismissed the jurors after they discussed the case for an hour. They will resume deliberations this morning.