REDWOOD CITY -- A Guatemalan national was found guilty of murder Wednesday after jurors determined he held down a Daly City high school student as an accomplice who was the "love of his life" stabbed the teen, prosecutors said.

Reynaldo Maldonado, 34, was convicted of first degree murder in the 2001 death of Quetzalcoatl Alba, 15, and faces 25 years to life in prison for his role in the crime, Chief Deputy Attorney Karen Guidotti said.

The defense argued that Maldonado deserved only "a certain moral blame" for lies he told about the Westmoor High School freshman's stabbing, but a jury determined Maldonado held the teen down to the ground as his lover fatally stabbed the teen across the upper half of his body.

The jury decided that Maldonado's actions were not premeditated -- an allegation that would have made him eligible for the death penalty or a life sentence without parole.

Attorneys on both sides agreed that 32-year-old Erick Morales, described by defense attorney Paul DeMeester as Maldonado's "love of his life," killed Alba May 21, 2001, but they clashed from the start about the extent of Maldonado's involvement.

Prosecutors later presented evidence that Maldonado restrained Alba, rendering him unable to defend himself as Morales stabbed his neck, back, arms, torso and hand.


Morales and Maldonado disappeared within two weeks of the killing, and the case languished until 2007. It was then that Daly City police got a call from officers in Miami who said that Maldonado confessed to a Florida man that he helped kill someone in California.


Morales was extradited from New York in 2009 after a fingerprint check during a drunken driving arrest revealed he was wanted for murder in California. His trial will begin in December, with jury selection commencing in January.