LEWISTON – A twice-convicted murderer sent to Arizona in an inmate swap before he returned for a new trial will not be leaving Maine again.

Brandon Thongsavanh, 24, of Auburn lost his appeal for a third trial in a Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruling this week.

Thongsavanh, referred to in the high court’s opinion as “thrill-seeking through violence,” was shipped to the state prison in Arizona in the spring of 2004 following his first conviction in the 2002 stabbing death of Bates College student Morgan McDuffee. Thongsavanh was considered a “high-risk” inmate.

One of Arizona’s more notorious high-risk inmates, serving a life sentence with a string of violent crimes to his name was sent to Maine’s maximum-security prison in Warren in the prisoner exchange.

Lewiston native Steven Coy came to Maine after commandeering a watch-tower at the Arizona Prison Complex-Lewis for two weeks. During that time, Coy reportedly raped one of the two guards he and another inmate held hostage.

His criminal history includes robbing an 84-year-old man at gunpoint, shooting a store clerk in the stomach and raping a shopkeeper in the back of her store. He also was convicted of sexual assault, escape and kidnapping.

Thongsavanh was returned to Maine in December 2004 after the Maine Supreme Judicial Court granted him a new trial.

He stayed in Maine for that trial where he was found guilty of murder a second time. He was sentenced to 58 years in prison. He remained in Maine during the appeal period that followed.

Thongsavanh will not be sent back to Arizona, said Denise Lord, associate commissioner at the Department of Corrections. Coy was sent back to Arizona in November 2006, Lord said.

Thongsavanh was described as a “nice kid” by the administrator at Androscoggin County Jail where the inmate stayed for a year leading up to his first trial.

But after his transfer back to the Maine State Prison in Warren, Thongsavanh got into trouble. He was accused of stabbing another inmate in the chest and leg with a homemade knife. He was indicted on a charge of aggravated assault stemming from that stabbing. He pleaded not guilty.