[4][5]: 81 [6]: 55 On September 3, 1977, in Tampa, Florida, while the Second International Mycological Congress was ongoing, Pollock and Gary Lincoff discovered a new species of psychoactive mushroom, which they named Psilocybe tampanensis.

[9][10][3]: 6, 16 Pollock envisioned creating the first legal medical mushroom research laboratory and estimated he would need about two million dollars to set it up.

[3]: 6–8  Together with another mushroom lover, Michael Forbes, he founded a company called Hidden Creek in 1979 to sell P. tampanensis sclerotium by mail.

[3]: 10–12 In 1983, detective Anton Michalec gathered evidence against three men whom he suspected of the murder: Ernest Dietzmann and Jerry Baker, who were drug dependents and patients of Pollock's, and Arthur Lenz, a methamphetamine dealer.

An informant told Michalec that these men had plotted to rob Pollock of his money, and their fingerprints matched those found at the crime scene.