SLAIN INFORMER SNITCHED ON FRIEND

Chad MacDonald was close to a man arrested on a tip he provided, the man's
stepmother says.

YORBA LINDA-One of the men whom Chad Allen MacDonald helped police arrest
for making methamphetamine in the man's bedroom was MacDonald's good
friend, according to the man's stepmother.

Working as a confidential informant, MacDonald told police about his
buddy's methamphetamine lab in the 4600 block of Avenida del Este in Yorba
Linda, less than a mile from MacDonald's home.

MacDonald agreed to help police after being arrested Jan. 6 with about 11
grams of methamphetamine. He made one undercover, supervised drug buy Jan.
15 - six weeks before he was killed. He also led them to his friend's meth
lab, where he spent several hours a week, the stepmother said.

MacDonald would watch television or hang out in the bedroom of Daryl
William Hood, 21, said Dolores Hood.

It was in that bedroom that police found a methamphetamine recipe, a
matchbox with 1 gram of meth inside and other materials used to make the
drug, a search warrant affidavit says.

Orange police, acting on tips from their own informants and corroborated by
MacDonald, raided the home Jan. 19 and arrested Hood and Ryan Patrick
McGreevey, 22, on suspicion of manufacturing a controlled substance and
possession of the drug and possession of materials to manufacture.

Both initially pleaded not guilty but changed their pleas Feb. 27, two days
before MacDonald and his girlfriend disappeared.

At least one student believes that MacDonald's snitching on Hood and
McGreevey led to his death. She called police the day after MacDonald's
body was found in a south-central Los Angeles alley.

"Chad was rumored to be the narc that got a meth lab taken down," the girl
told police, according to a Brea police report released Thursday by
MacDonald's family attorney, Lloyd Charton.

It is unclear whether Hood and McGreevey had any connection to the Norwalk
home where MacDonald was tortured.

Dolores Hood said Thursday that she believes MacDonald had something to do
with her stepson's arrest. But she did not know at the time that he was a
police informant.

"You have to pay the consequences if you're going to do something like
snitch on somebody," she said. "You're entering a dangerous world then."