3 GUILTY OF KILLING TEEN

COURTS: Chad MacDonald's death led to a law restricting use of teen informants.

Norwalk - Two men and a woman could face the death penalty after a jury
convicted them Monday of murdering a Yorba Linda teen-ager who had worked as
a police informant.

The March 1998 slaying of Chad MacDonald, 17, in a Norwalk drug house
sparked debate over the use of teen-age informants and led to a new state
law restricting the use of minors as police operatives.

Michael L. Martinez, 22, Jose A. Ibarra, 21, and Florence Noriega, 30, were
convicted of special-circumstances murder for strangling MacDonald during a
robbery and Kidnapping.

Cindy MacDonald, the youth's mother, sobbed and clutched her husband as a
clerk read the verdicts in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Norwalk.

"It's not a day you look forward to, but obviously you want justice served,"
said Cindy MacDonald, whose lawsuit against Brea police is pending.

Chad MacDonald's girlfriend, who was raped and shot in the face by his
killers but survived to implicate them, listened to the verdict from a
private hallway.

Chad MacDonald agreed to work for the police after a methamphetamine-related
arrest in January 1998. He made one undercover buy for investigators, but
was terminated as an informant two weeks before the murder after his second
drug arrest.

The same nine-woman, three-man jury that convicted the defendants will
return next month to decide whether they should receive the death penalty.
Noriega, who left the courtroom in tears, could become just the 11th woman
condemned to die in California.