Tag: Alabama

In January 2022, the pain coursing through Hannah Pettey’s body for six months was hitting her harder than ever.

Hannah Pettey: It was unbearable … I was in the bed at this point for probably like a week straight.

Anne Marie Green: Were you even able to care for your kids?

Hannah Pettey: I did as much as I could.

Hannah’s son Lincoln was 3, and her daughter Gracie had just turned 2. But Hannah was too sick to attend Gracie’s birthday party.

Hannah Pettey: I was so weak that I couldn’t hardly walk. I had a little office chair that I would roll around in our house because I really didn’t get out of the house …

Hannah says her husband Brian Mann was there when she needed him the most.

Hannah Pettey: When I really started getting sick is when he was the sweetest to me …

Brian was a chiropractor, but he says he could not diagnose what was wrong with Hannah.

Brian Mann: I had no idea … that’s out of my forte. Um, that’s someone that I would refer out, refer to a specialist, which is what I wanted to do.

On Jan. 18, 2022, Hannah checked in with her mother Nicole Pettey. After they hung up, Nicole says she was haunted by something she heard in her daughter’s voice.

Nicole Pettey: Just know that feeling, I knew something was wrong.

Nicole Pettey: I called and called and called and texted … Hannah called me finally … but she wasn’t able to speak. … So she just kind of gasped … and then she’d asked me, she said, “Mom, can you take me to the hospital?”

What was making Hannah Pettey sick?

Brian was at work, so Nicole rushed over and drove Hannah to UAB, the hospital at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. While there, Nicole took several photos and videos.

Nicole Pettey: The doctor … said, obviously she is very sick … I wanna keep her, but there’s … no way that they’re gonna let me keep her. Her, um, vitals are stable … I said … “if you send her home, she’s gonna die …”

It was right then that Hannah suffered a terrifying seizure, and, in the frenzy, she ripped off her hospital gown. For Nicole, that moment is frozen in time.

 Nicole Pettey: … she was skin and bones … they told me that she was actually starving to death when we got there, they said she was, had hours to live …

One doctor directed her anger at Nicole.

Nicole Pettey: She’s like, does she live with you? Like obviously someone should have seen that this person was dying, you know. This person was starving to death. … She said, “who is responsible for her?”

Anne-Marie Green: What’d you say?

Nicole Pettey: And I said, she’s married and they said, “she’s married?”

The seizure was so severe Hannah lost consciousness. Doctors wanted to talk with Hannah’s husband, so Nicole says she texted Brian:

“Hey Brian, Hannah had a seizure about 2 hours ago. She still has not come to yet…they said she could be out all day long, so I wanted to let you know if she’s not texting you that is why…”

Nicole Pettey: And I, of course, didn’t get a response from him …

Anne-Marie Green: So you don’t get … a text back — from Brian …

Nicole Pettey: No, never.

It had been that way for years, she said; all through his marriage to Hannah, Brian ignored Nicole.

Nicole Pettey: … never seen him the whole time they were married … never … any interaction with him whatsoever.

Anne-Marie Green: Never for any family gatherings, any holidays, he just never came?

Nicole Pettey: Never.

Anne-Marie Green: Brian didn’t like you.

Nicole Pettey: No.

That night, Brian never got back to Nicole, but he had learned about Hannah’s condition from his mother, who was in touch with Nicole. He arranged for childcare and began driving.

Nicole Pettey: He got to the hospital around 9:30 that night …

Under COVID restrictions, the hospital was allowing only one visitor at a time and with Nicole inside, Brian was kept out.

Brian Mann: I was very irritated that Nicole was not switching out with me, um, letting me in, because I stood outside of that hospital for a long time, trying to get in that room with Hannah.

But eventually, Nicole did come out and Brian was allowed in. 

Anne-Marie Green: It must have been shocking to see her in that hospital bed like that?

Brian Mann: Yes … but I was glad that she was there … and — and people were trying to figure something out.

When Mann left to go to work, Nicole went in. Hannah was still unconscious and had been that way for nearly 48 hours. Nurses had just finished checking on her when Nicole bent over her daughter.

Nicole Pettey: I kissed her head, and I said, “I love you” … Her eyes just popped open. And then she said, “I love you too.”

Nicole says nurses were amazed and rushed to her side.

Nicole Pettey: I just started crying and Hannah said, “have I not been talking?”

But Hannah’s ordeal was far from over. Days after Hannah was admitted, Nicole says doctors put her in a medical coma while they drained the excess fluid from within her brain.

Nicole Pettey: … and then they had to paralyze her because even being in a coma, um, there was just so much fluid in her brain that any type of movement … she would’ve died…

Anne-Marie Green: But, Nicole, it’s like things are going from bad to worse.

Nicole Pettey: Yeah, yeah.

Anne Marie Green: Did you ever give up hope?

Nicole Pettey: No. Oh no. No. Never. Not one time …

Brian says he was wondering why Hannah’s health had gone downhill so quickly the day Nicole had picked her up and drove to the hospital.

Brian Mann: … that is curious how bad she got from getting in the car with her mother to being admitted to the hospital.

His dislike and distrust of Nicole boiled over.

Brian Mann: … she is a cruel person … she was not happy with the fact that Hannah seemed happy being with me …

Hannah Pettey’s body was “packed with lead”

Eight days after Hannah was admitted to the hospital, her neurologist told Nicole that doctors had figured out what was causing Hannah’s symptoms.

Nicole Pettey: Her exact words were, “she has an astronomical amount of lead inside of her.”

Lead. It was an unusual finding, and Nicole says doctors told her they had never seen a patient like Hannah.

Nicole Pettey: They said her colon was so packed, full of lead … it was almost 100% lead. … there was no room in her stomach to hold anything. It was just complete lead plus there was lead just in her bones, just everywhere …

Doctors told Nicole there was no way Hannah could have ingested all that lead by accident — it had to be deliberate, and they told her exactly what they thought.

Nicole Pettey: They let me know that this is an attempted murder …

The hospital reported Hannah’s case to the Department of Human Resources, the state agency that protects vulnerable adults. Hospital administrators immediately put Hannah in a secluded room with someone at the door to keep all visitors out. Nicole says she and Brian were told to leave and were no longer allowed to see Hannah because they were considered possible suspects.

Nicole Pettey: I was beside myself … because I had to leave her … they had to send me away from the hospital. 

Brian Mann: I immediately started thinking this is Nicole. … This has to be Nicole pointing fingers … I didn’t really think it would get anywhere because I thought it was, again, just Nicole making waves to make waves.

Brian Mann: Hannah’s mom just caused so many problems and not so much directly at me, but she was just awful to Hannah …

Brian says Hannah told him that Nicole could be critical of her.

Brian Mann: Why don’t you put makeup on, um, are you sure you should eat that? Just stuff like that all the time.

Brian Mann: I would say … why do you want this woman in your life? And it always all she could come back to, “she’s my mom.” … “She’s my mom.” And that’s really the only defense she had for her, “she’s my mom.”

Hannah denies Brian’s allegations. She did move away from Nicole and got her own apartment in June 2017, the month she turned 18 years old. She had just graduated from high school. That’s when she met Brian, a 29-year-old chiropractor with his own business.

Hannah Pettey: He was very, very sweet in the beginning and you know … he’s very charming, good looking. (Laughs) And yeah, I really liked him.

Anne-Marie Green: Sounds like it was almost sort of instant attraction.

Brian Mann: Yes … it was head over heels. … umm everything was just working right.

Within weeks of Brian’s first date with Hannah, his friend Walker Snyder says Brian told him Hannah was “the one.”

Walker Snyder: And I’m like, man, you just met her like a week ago or she’s 18. (laughs) she doesn’t know what she wants. … She doesn’t even know what she doesn’t want. And he was like, “No, we both know what we want” …

It wasn’t long before Hannah told friends she was pregnant.

Anne-Marie Green: How long were you guys dating … before you proposed?

Brian Mann: We started dating in November. I believe I proposed after Valentine’s Day … so not — not too long.

Anne-Marie Green: Were you nervous?

Brian Mann: I was … I take marriage very seriously. And, so, yeah … I was, I was definitely nervous about it.

Hannah was nervous, too. She says she had noticed that Brian could be controlling but she plunged ahead — at least until her wedding day in May 2018. Hannah’s friend, Alyson Holmes.

Alyson Holmes: Right before we were all about to walk down the aisle … Hannah expressed to us that she was, you know … very nervous. She had cold feet …

Nicole Pettey: We told her a hundred times over. You don’t have to do it. … if this is cold feet, you know, it is what it is. But if this is un — uncertainty, walk away, it’s not too late to walk away.

In the end, Hannah smiled through her ceremony, and married Brian.

Anne-Marie Green: When you walked up to the altar and you looked at him, you had no questions?

Hannah Pettey: I mean, I did. … I mean, deep down I did. I was like, I don’t really know if I’m making the right decision and everything …

The couple moved into Brian’s home and started their lives together.

Anne-Marie Green: How was he as a husband?

Hannah Pettey: For the most part, he was really good as a husband … I mean, it was good and bad.

Hannah Pettey: We got in a lot of physical fights … so that’s a bad thing, but it wasn’t … all the time though, so …

Anne-Marie Green: You know, like, as I’m listening to you talk, you know, it sounds almost a little bit like —

Hannah Pettey: Mm.

Anne-Marie Green: — you’re explaining away –

Hannah Pettey: Mm-hmm.

Anne-Marie Green: — the bad stuff. Do you think you did that in the marriage a bit?

Hannah Pettey: Uh, yeah, I definitely did, I think …Yeah. Yeah, my mom tells me that, too.

Even their son’s birth was a minefield of emotion.

Hannah Pettey: You know, I was nine months pregnant, and I had started, um, bleeding. And so, I went to the hospital, and he came in and he got so angry at me … and he was yelling at me … and “you shouldn’t have been out walking like in this heat” … like, “that was so stupid and irresponsible”

Alyson Holmes: … he was acting so just outrageous that the nurses … even told her … if you need us to do something, then you say this specific word and we’ll know … that we need to step in and intervene in what’s going on …

Hannah never used that “safe word” but as time went on, Brian says the couple came to an understanding.

Brian Mann: I would say, Hannah, talk to me. I am on your side…. I’m your biggest fan, your biggest supporter … one day she said …  I’m going to trust you. And I want to do this with you. And I want to build this with you. … from then on, it just got better and better.

Hannah Pettey: … that’s when I started to really fall in love with him.

The couple had another child, a daughter, and life was good, they say, until Hannah began to feel sick and went to the hospital emergency room in January 2022. She was left fighting for her life, and doctors were trying to help her, but they told Nicole they had to know more.

Anne-Marie Green: They said the only way she gets this much lead in her system —

Nicole Pettey: Is to ingest it. Is to ingest it. They said she had to have ingested it.

Nicole Pettey: I remember them saying, we don’t care if you give her crack … we just want to know about it. We have to know everything she’s taken.

And that’s when Nicole remembered something that she’d completely overlooked: Hannah told her that Brian had given her special supplements – capsules — each and every night.

In search of evidence

Doctors kept asking Nicole what Hannah had been eating in the months leading up to her hospital stay.

Nicole Pettey: From what they can see, it looks like someone has gave her lead every single day for, at least … three months.

Was Hannah eating something that contained lead? Nicole says she had no idea because she hardly ever visited her daughter in the months before the seizure. And never if Brian was home.

Nicole Pettey: I could only go when he was working … and I would have to leave before he got off work. … I never actually ran into him.

Anne-Marie Green: Whoa.

Nicole Pettey: Yeah, He didn’t come home until I left.

As doctors pressed her for information, Nicole remembered Hannah telling her about special supplement capsules that Brian placed on her nightstand every night. Nicole says it didn’t strike her as unusual because Brian was a chiropractor, but she told doctors anyway.

Nicole Pettey: I told ’em that I know that they were big on supplements.

Nicole says doctors repeatedly asked Brian to bring in the capsules described by Hannah, but he never did. Instead, he gave them a photo of common over-the-counter supplements.

DHR investigators, who were getting information from Hannah’s doctors, contacted Lt. Alan McDearmond of the Hartselle Police Department.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: They said that I needed to go arrest somebody for attempting to kill their wife. And I’m like, well, hold up. I mean, we can’t just go arrest people. What are you talking about?

Investigators told McDearmond that doctors suspected Brian had given Hannah some type of lead-filled capsules over and over again.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: … you can take a capsule and open it up, empty the contents and then put the lead in …

McDearmond told Brian about the hospital’s allegations.

Brian Mann: McDearmond … said … your wife’s been lead poisoned. … And they think it was intentional. And they said, you’re the number one suspect … So, I was kind of dumbfounded … I didn’t know what to think about that.

McDearmond asked Brian if the police could search his house, and he agreed.

Brian Mann: So, I took him all through the house. I let him search my house … And we went through and tried to figure out what she was eating, pills, make-ups and — and things like that.

McDearmond says Brian provided a bottle of supplements and a laxative that he said Hannah had taken.

Anne-Marie Green: Hannah says you made her take supplements.

Brian Mann: That is not true …

Brian blamed all his problems on Nicole.

Brian Mann: I immediately started thinking this is Nicole …This has to be Nicole pointing fingers.

Investigators removed the children from Brian’s home. They were placed with his parents. He had supervised visitation.

Brian Mann: Nicole had just done so much over the years and Hannah had told me so much about her that I just had no doubt … Nicole was somehow stirring this all up.

Brian said he remembered something Hannah had told him that now seemed to hold more significance. In second grade, in a story that Hannah confirms, she recalled being so sick for so long that she visited the school nurse dozens of times.

Brian Mann: … and she eventually got really bad, and her mother took her to UAB. She says she remembers staying there about a week.

Flash forward to 2022. Hannah was back at UAB Hospital. On January 29, McDearmond went to see Hannah for himself, but she was in a coma.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: I had no idea the condition she was in until I went to the hospital and saw her for myself …

Doctors showed him Hannah’s X-rays.

Anne Marie Green: What did you think?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: Oh, gosh, I was just floored. I mean, her whole insides was lit up from the — the lead reacting to the X-ray … I mean It was crazy.

McDearmond asked Brian to come in.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: And at that point is when he refused to further cooperate with the investigation.

On February 1, McDearmond cleared Nicole, and she was once again allowed to visit Hannah.

Anne-Marie Green: How were you able to clear Nicole?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: You know, just through conversations … whether you could tell that she was very concerned about Hannah … she was the person that was caring for Hannah …

Anne-Marie Green: It sounds to me like you just like Nicole’s behavior. She acted the way you expect a concerned mother to act. … And Brian didn’t act the way you expected a concerned husband to act.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: That’s correct.

Anne-Marie Green: Is that evidence?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: That’s not evidence. No … and the problem with this case was there was not a lot of evidence.

Within days, McDearmond received the results of the tests done at Brian and Hannah’s home.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: Everything was negative.

Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever find any capsules?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: Um, no.

Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever find any supplements that were tainted?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: Um, no.

Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever find evidence of lead being ground down or scraped, or turned into little particles that could go into a capsule?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: No.

Anne-Marie Green: So, isn’t that kind of a big hole in the theory?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: Well, he sold supplements.

McDearmond says he kept looking for the source of that lead. In mid-February, Hannah began to rally and McDearmond went to see her again.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: I told her in a very nice way, you know, why she was in the hospital and … asked her, you know, do you have any idea who may have given you some substance? She said, “No.”

Lt. Alan McDearmond: Do you have any thoughts of self-harm? I mean, did you put yourself here? And she said, “No.”

McDearmond said Hannah was coherent one minute and not the next. She said she saw “people coming out of the walls.”

Lt. Alan McDearmond: When I first started talking to the medical staff, I mean, they didn’t give her any hope … they said if she came out of this, that, uh, she would really not have any cognitive functions … they didn’t suspect that, that we would be able to even talk with her.

Anne Marie Green: Wow.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: They basically told us that we needed to do everything that we could, because we didn’t need to rely on her as a witness because they didn’t think she would ever make it to that point.

But Hannah surprised everyone by getting stronger each day with the help of a team of dedicated nurses.

Nicole Pettey: They were all kind of close to her age … they knew she had kids, and they would say to her, “you’ve got your babies, you’ve got your babies.”

Nicole Pettey: And I remember she just always got a life in her when you mentioned the kids. She was like … I’m gonna get better. I’m gonna get out here and get better, you know.

Nicole says Hannah did get better and stronger — strong enough that Hannah’s neurologist told her the whole story.

Hannah Pettey: She grabbed my hand and she just kind of started giving me a heart to heart about why they have strong reasons to believe that it was Brian.

Anne-Marie Green: And what’s the conversation like after that, between you and Hannah?

Nicole Pettey: Oh, it was horrible. That was horrible. Sorry, of everything that she went through, the heartbreak … The heartbreak was terrible … She just would sit there and cry.

On March 3, after nearly two months, Hannah was well enough to leave the hospital. She went to her mom’s house, reunited with her children, and filed for divorce. But friends like Kyle Golden were worried.

Kyle Golden: We did know that Hannah was still in contact with Brian —

Alyson Holmes: Yeah.

Kyle Golden: And that did upset us … It was scary.

Alyson Holmes: Yeah.

Kyle Golden: Knowing that she could potentially go back to this guy that we believe tried to kill her.

Hannah Pettey goes back to Brian Mann; Considers halting her cooperation

In the days after Hannah got out of the hospital, Hannah says she felt vulnerable and confused. 

Hannah Pettey: I was on so many different medicines, so many different psych medicines the doctors had me on …

Despite the risks, Hannah had made up her mind to sit down with Brian face to face. Just one week after being discharged, she met him at their former home.

Hannah Pettey: I just had to figure it out for myself. Instead of everyone telling me this is what happened.

Anne-Marie Green: And so you sit down with him.

Hannah Pettey: Mm-hmm.

Anne-Marie Green: And did you ask him outright? Did you do this? Did you try to poison me?

Hannah Pettey: No, I was so emotional. I mean I didn’t stop crying that night. I remember I cried all through the night.

Hannah Pettey: I wanted him to say … like there’s no way that I could have, you know like what … or like, are you crazy? Like this is crazy … And I was expecting him to go out and say that to everybody. I don’t care if he even made a Facebook post about it or just anything.

Hannah says Brian never told her what she needed to hear. But then, incredibly, she changed her mind about the divorce. 

Hannah Pettey: I called my attorney. I was like, I don’t want to go through with the divorce … like I don’t think he did it. I said there must be something else.

Anne-Marie Green: Hannah told you not to sign the divorce papers?

Brian Mann: Yes.

Anne-Marie Green: Because why?

Brian Mann: Because she knew her mother had made up this whole thing and it was just another crazy Nicole episode.

When Hannah’s family doctor heard what was going on, Nicole says he wanted to have Hannah involuntarily committed because he feared Brian would kill her. And Hannah’s next move caused even more consternation: she asked McDearmond to drop the investigation.

Hannah Pettey: I said, “he’s a family man.” I said, “he loves me. He loves the kids.” … It just doesn’t make sense.

McDearmond knew without Hannah’s help, the criminal case against Brian would likely collapse. But he understood what Hannah was feeling.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: It’s typical of domestic violence … to forgive your abuser …

McDearmond asked Hannah to sign a specific form that he’d prepared.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: And she said, well, what do I have to sign this for? … And I said, well, if … Brian were to kill you in the future, and somebody from your family … comes and says that we didn’t do our due diligence in the investigation, then I can show them that you didn’t want to pursue it. … So, if you want to go ahead and sign that, then we’ll close it up. And she said, “No, I’m not going to sign that.” … She said, “I want you to keep going.”

Ultimately, she decided to proceed with the divorce and cooperate with the criminal investigation.

Anne Marie Green: What do you learn from Hannah?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: … more than anything insurance policies.

Hannah told McDearmond that Brian had taken out life insurance policies on her while they were still dating. McDearmond learned that when Hannah was in the hospital fighting for her life, Brian tried to take out even more policies. If they were approved, Brian would have collected more than $5 million upon Hannah’s death. 

Anne-Marie Green: And that gave you what?

Lt. Alan McDearmond: Well it gives you motive … money’s a motive, money’s a huge motive.

At that point, McDearmond felt he’d collected enough evidence to move ahead and so did prosecutor Garrick Vickery.

Garrick Vickery: We knew Hannah had been poisoned, that it was intentional and that it was ingested.

Anne-Marie Green: You don’t have any capsules with lead. You have a theory, you have a suspect, and you have what you believe is a motive. Why were you confident that this was enough to put in front of a grand jury?

Garrick Vickery: Nothing else made sense … In this case, the evidence was clear that lead was getting into her system. So, then you rewind the tape, you back up, and you see how that lead could have gotten into her system. … And Brian Mann was the only person who had access to Hannah.

The grand jury agreed and in September 2022, Brian Mann was arrested and pleaded “not guilty” to attempted murder. He was freed on a $500,000 bond but was required to report to jail every weekend.

Anne-Marie Green: Can I see the ankle monitor?

Brian Mann: Sure.

Anne-Marie Green: What’s it like having to wear that?

Brian Mann: … I mean, it’s definitely annoying.

Police still had nothing connecting Brian to any form of lead. But then, they got an unexpected call. Turns out Danny Hill thought he knew exactly where the lead came from.

It all began when Brian asked Hill, a contractor, to line his X-ray room at his chiropractic office with, you guessed it: lead. Hill had recognized Brian from a newspaper article about his arrest and got in touch with McDearmond.

Danny Hill: You do an X-ray room, the walls have to be lined with lead … for the protection of the people outside the room. … We did it with rolls of soft lead that we just covered the walls with and then put drywall all over the top of that.

“48 Hours” asked Hill to obtain a sample of the same type of lead he installed in Brian’s office.

The lead was heavy but surprisingly soft and malleable. Hill showed us how easy it is to scrape the sheet of lead into tiny shavings — just like pencil shavings —and how easy it is to put those shavings into an empty pill capsule.

Danny Hill: … that’s just the shaving of the lead.

Anne-Marie Green: Oh.

Danny Hill: This soft.

After Hill was done with the V-ray room, he asked Brian if he should dispose of the remaining lead.

Danny Hill: And he said, I’ll take care of it …

Hill’s information sent cops directly to Brian’s office. Prior to Hill’s revelations, the Hartselle Police Department did not have probable cause. Now they did.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: And we got a search warrant. We went in and we took a section of that out …

Lt. Alan McDearmond: The lead that we recovered from the office was very thin … it would be thin enough that it could be shaved or whatever.

Anne-Marie Green: Tell me about how important that phone call was from the contractor.

Garrick Vickery: It was vitally important. It’s always necessary … to put your murder weapon into the hands of a defendant.

But Brian insists the state’s case is weak, and so he got himself a strong advocate — bodybuilder and defense lawyer Chad Morgan.

Chad Morgan: There’s no reason that any of their evidence should be able to get into a courtroom …

Going into the trial in June 2025, Brian had been forbidden any visitation with his children for more than two years. He says it was just unfair.

Brian Mann: I should have never been separated from my kids. … I’m going to be back in their lives. … I’ve just been waiting for my chance.

The trial of Brian Mann

Anne-Marie Green: How does it feel to know that someone tried to kill you?

Hannah Pettey: … at night I get really creeped out thinking about that someone poisoned me for a long, long time …

BEN HOOVER [ Local news report]: The state started its case today against a Morgan County chiropractor charged with attempting to kill his wife … Mann maintains his innocence …

In June 2025, defendant Brian Mann walks into a Decatur, Alabama, courthouse, facing a possible life sentence. No cameras are permitted inside the courtroom during the trial.

Anne-Marie Green: What was your working theory as to what happened in this case with this crime?

Garrick Vickery: It really begins months before Hannah ever appears at UAB Hospital …

Lead prosecutor Garrick Vickery.

Garrick Vickery: In terms of a — a theory, it mostly was that he made a decision to slowly poison her, to gain this life insurance, to rid himself of a sweet, sweet person …

Brian’s defense attorney Chad Morgan tells the jury that police never found any lead-filled capsules in Brian’s home, office or anywhere else.

Chad Morgan: … they searched the entire house top to bottom, never found one piece of lead. 

Garrick Vickery: One of the issues we had was that Brian Mann had months and months … to execute his plan and then to get rid of the evidence. …

But the state does have Hannah, and prosecutors make her the first witness.

Anne-Marie Green: Did you look at Brian when you walked into the courtroom?

Hannah Pettey: I did …

Anne-Marie Green: … was that the man that you had fallen in love with?

Hannah Pettey: No, I mean, I saw someone totally different …

Hannah tells the jury how Brian supplied her with vitamin capsules each night even when her pain was so intense she could barely swallow.

Hannah Pettey: I remember, um, being in bed one night and I was in so much pain, and I was so nauseous … and Brian was like … I put your vitamins on your nightstand. … And he was like, “you need to take ’em.” And I was like, I just can’t tonight. I do not think I can keep anything else down. … and he was like freaking out about it. Like he was like, “you gotta take it” …

Anne-Marie Green: How easy would it have been to put lead in those capsules?

Garrick Vickery: Tremendously easy … Anyone that’s sharpened a pencil could see how easy it is to get lead shavings. … And once you have that and you have two hands to separate a pill and put it back together, you’ve got all the instruments you need to try to murder your spouse.

Brian’s attorney alleges Hannah’s own mother Nicole could have been the one poisoning Hannah.

Chad Morgan: I’m suggesting they’re looking in the wrong place.

He claims Nicole gave Hannah milkshakes that could have been laced with lead.

Chad Morgan: … tell me why her mom was coming to her house every day for almost a year, giving her a milkshake.

Anne-Marie Green: Did you look into her mother?

Kelly Cimino: The thought was considered … you — you don’t want to rule anyone out before.

Assistant District Attorney Kelly Cimino.

Kelly Cimino: And Nicole just didn’t have that kind of access to her daughter.

Anne-Marie Green: Did your mom bring you milkshakes?

Hannah Pettey: No, not that I recall …I don’t even like milkshakes. I really don’t even like milkshakes … I don’t drink milkshakes.

Hannah tells the jury how the pain affected her. Her body, in a sense, the crime scene and her brain scans, blood work and X-rays are discussed in open court. But there’s something she’s been holding back until she takes the stand.

Hannah Pettey: It is kind of emotional to talk about the fact that I can’t have children anymore.

On the day she was discharged, Hannah was smiling but, inside, she was heartbroken. Doctors had just told her she could no longer have children. She was only 22 years old.

When it’s Nicole’s turn to take the stand, she thinks she knows what’s coming from Brian’s defense attorney.

Nicole Pettey: I know … that he was gonna try to say that, possibly say that I had did this. … And I wasn’t really concerned about that because … I didn’t do it …

Cimino explains why prosecutors believe Brian used lead-filled capsules instead of mixing the lead into her food.

Kelly Cimino: … she would have tasted it. … And so that’s where … the … theory of the capsule comes in because it’s the only way that she would’ve willingly put it in her mouth and swallowed it and not noticed anything different …

After a day-and-a-half and seven witnesses, the state rests its case. And then so does the defense. Chad Morgan calls no witnesses.

Hannah Pettey:  I was shocked that they’ve had three years to put this together and then it comes out that he has no defense at all.

Brian’s lawyer says he did his job and maintains that the lack of evidence in the state’s case is the best evidence of all.

Chad Morgan: There was a lot of assumptions about this is lead and that’s lead, but there was not one person that testified to anything that they actually saw him do, touch or even begin to believe that … she ingested something he gave her.

The jury gets the case on a Wednesday afternoon, and the next day returns a verdict: guilty.

Jeff Sollee: There was a — about a second of shock … I don’t think he was expecting that.

Juror Jeff Solee.

Jeff Sollee: That guy’s a monster.

Anne-Marie Green: Why do you say that?

Jeff Sollee: The arrogance it takes to essentially watch somebody waste away … And then not only watch during the poisoning, but also watch during, you know, the downfall. … I think that takes a very special person. 

Hannah Pettey: … it took me a few seconds for it to — to …  sink in that it was a guilty verdict. …I just immediately started feeling the tears well up because it was just this build up and I just had to step out.

Lt. Alan McDearmond: This is a great win for all domestic violence victims, especially those that are scared to come forward.

McDearmond is now chief of the Hartselle Police Department. And after a lot of reflection, Hannah allows herself to consider a hard truth.

Anne-Marie Green: Do you think he ever loved you?

Hannah Pettey: No, I truly don’t think that he did … I just don’t think any of it was real.

Anne-Marie Green: It’s gotta be hard to say.

Hannah Pettey: Yeah.

Anne-Marie Green: Cause it was real for you.

Hannah Pettey: Yes. It was very real for me. 

Now it’s very real for Brian who was sentenced to life in prison in August 2025. And Hannah, who was once feared to be so brain-damaged that she would never be able to testify, graduated from college with a teaching degree.

Anne-Marie Green: And what does Hannah’s new life look like?

Hannah Pettey: You know I’m a teacher, so I’m starting at a new school this year. So, I’m just gonna focus on being the best teacher that I can be and … being the best mother I can be.

Life got even sweeter for Hannah when she and the children moved back into their old home, the one they used to share with Brian.

Hannah Pettey: I’ve repainted … I redecorated everything, cleaned it up really good. … I got all my stuff moved in there and just pictures of us three all in there. So now it feels like ours.

Hannah and Brian remain married. The next court date for the divorce proceedings is December 2026.

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

---

Produced by Paul La Rosa. David Dow and Tamara Weitzman are the development producers. Charlotte Fuller  is the field producer. Wini Dini and Greg Kaplan are the editors. Dena Goldstein is the field producer. Nancy Bautista is the associate producer. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.