A jury handed down an involuntary manslaughter conviction for two coworkers who once labored in a cubicle expanse that occupied the entire floor of a nondescript office building on the southern edge of downtown Modesto.
Daniel Polemicus and Frederick Adhominus, accidentally killed their immediate supervisor, the late Goodson Simpatico. All three men worked at Retronomy, a data processing company that primarily focused on payroll and customer service metrics. Additionally, the company offered pro bono database management for a nationwide group of citizen scientists.
According to court records and news reports, all three men attended a company Halloween party held on the second floor of a large meeting hall near downtown Modesto.
Several witnesses at the trial noted that Polemicus, Adhominus, and Simpatico were friends who attended and graduated from the same high school in Modesto.
“Man, those guys were like a family,” recalled one of their former coworkers, “I mean, they did everything together, and I still can’t believe this happened.”
Based on eyewitness testimony, the three men had several drinks and had a great time visiting and dancing with their fellow employees. At 10:00 P.M. or so, the trio began behaving erratically and shouting at one another. Before anyone could intervene, Polemicus and Adhominus both threw Mr. Simpatico over the balcony, whereupon Goodson Simpatico broke his neck on the sidewalk and died instantly.
Daniel Polemicus and Frederick Adhominus were tested for drugs after their arrests. Both the drug tests and the toxicology screening of Goodson Simpatico indicated the presence of Goofron-63, an illegal hallucinogen known to induce violent paranoid delusions. The drug was present in all three men at the time of Mr. Simpatico’s death.
Based on their testimony and the assessment of several doctors, neither Polemicus nor Adhominus used recreational drugs. This fact triggered an investigation as to how the three men ingested the toxic Goofron-63.
Acting against the advice of his attorney, Frederick Adhominus took the witness stand and between sobs, told the court, “There was a plastic triceratops sitting on a shelf in the place where we had the company party. I guessed some kid might have left it there. But one second I was laughing and talking with my best friends, and suddenly the triceratops grew to the size of a cow, and we had to move it, and push it out of the room. I woke up in a hospital a couple of days later handcuffed to a bed. They told me that I killed my friend.”
The investigation as to where and how the Goofron-63 got into the three men is ongoing.