FRIEND DETAILS TEEN'S LAST DAYS

He says MacDonald frequented the Norwalk house as part of his work for police.

Yorba Linda-Chad Allen MacDonald started visiting a reputed Norwalk drug
house because he had already led police to all his local drug connections,
some of his closest friends said Friday.

"We couldn't figure out why he would want to go all the way down there,
into that neighborhood," recalled Don McGluckie, 21, adding that up until
January, MacDonald had just about quit using drugs.

He now believes it was to help police make one more big bust, not to feed
his meth-smoking habit.

MacDonald became an informant to avoid jail time, after being arrested Jan.
6 with about 11 grams of methamphetamine. He made one supervised buy for
police on Jan. 15 - six weeks before he was strangled and dumped in a
south-central Los Angeles alley.

Brea police officials say he no longer was working for them when he
disappeared. He didn't go to the Norwalk house at their direction, they
say.

"It's easy to (blame) in hindsight," Police Chief William Lentini said.
"Just look at the facts."

MacDonald's death has sparked a debate about the use of juveniles as police
informants; state legislators have proposed banning the practice.

His friends say the normally outgoing teen-ager became nervous and jittery
about the time of his first arrest.

"He was a nervous wreck the last two months of his life," said Steve Magy,
20. "He was trapped and confused. He didn't know what he was doing."

Rather than talking about his plans of becoming a Las Vegas card-table
dealer or an accountant, his conversations almost always focused on getting
more drugs.

Police arrested two of MacDonald's drug-dealer friends, Daryl Hood and Ryan
McGreevey, on Jan. 29, three days after MacDonald told them about the meth
lab in Hood's bedroom.

Before February, there were three meth dealers around Yorba Linda that
MacDonald and his friends bought from. Two were in jail by Feb. 1, and
police were after the third, McGluckie said.

The arrest shook the small group of MacDonald's closest friends. Many vowed
to stop smiling meth.

Not Chad.

Just days after Hood's arrest, MacDonald, looking for a new place to buy,
was told about the Norwalk house, his friends said.

He was also given a warning, McGluckie said: "Be careful. It's not a safe
place to be at."

MacDonald sometimes went on his own or with other friends to the house with
broken windows and a sofa on the porch.

Sometimes, he would spend the night.

He helped those who lived there fix lights. He bought them a generator with
his own money.

And he kept going back. McGluckie was worried about his buddy. He
confronted him.

"I've go a few things to take care of," MacDonald answered.

He never explained what those things were.

Rumors were already abounding that MacDonal was responsible for Hood's
arrest and the search of another local dealer's home.

"It's just really sad," he said. "He was trying to get his life together,
and the cops put so much fear in his heart."

A week before MacDonald disappeared, somebody slashed all four tires on
MacDonald's white Nissan pickup, and that scared him deeply, McGluckie
said.

McGluckie said he last saw his best friend the day before he and his
girlfriend disappeared.

MacDonald told him he was going to Norwalk the following day.

"Why? Why do you have to keep going down there?"

MacDonald took a deep breath and answered: "I gotta do this one last thing.
And then I want to take a vacation."