Judge Delays Hearings in Teen Slaying

Extradition hearings for two suspects in the slaying of a Yorba Linda teenager and the attack on his girlfriend were postponed Tuesday until the end of the week.

Michael L. Martinez, 21, and Florence L. Noriega, 28, both of Norwalk, appeared briefly in separate Las Vegas courtrooms. Both judges asked if the defendants had seen the documents requesting their extradition to Los Angeles County. Martinez and Noriega both said they had not. The judges ordered that the papers be delivered to their jail cells and scheduled new hearings for Friday.

The suspects, who were arrested Saturday in a downtown Las Vegas hotel, have been linked by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s homicide detectives to last week’s killing of Chad Allan MacDonald Jr., 17. His body was found last week in an alley in South Los Angeles.

MacDonald’s 16-year-old girlfriend, also from Yorba Linda, was found the same day. She had been raped, shot in the jaw and left in the Angeles National Forest. She managed to walk to a highway and flag down a driver.

Detectives are looking for a third suspect, Jose A. Ibarra, 19, of Norwalk, who also is suspected of kidnapping, extortion and murder.

Authorities say the teenagers had gone to a Norwalk house where Noriega and Martinez were staying and had been held captive for about three days. Authorities have not revealed why they went there, nor why MacDonald was killed.