Background: News footage of Hannah Pettey entering court to testify against her ex-husband, Brian Mann (WHNT). Inset: Brian Mann (Morgan County Sheriff”s Office).
An Alabama chiropractor who tried to murder his wife by poisoning her with lead he found while his office was under construction has been sentenced to life in prison.
Brian Mann, 36, was found guilty by a jury in June after his wife, 25-year-old Hannah Pettey, testified against him during his trial. Mann was convicted of attempted murder years after he poisoned his wife with lead. Pettey had testified that her estranged husband took out “a lot” of life insurance policies on her at several different companies and discouraged her from seeking medical attention for her symptoms.
At one point, Mann tried to pretend that he and his other children were also suffering from lead poisoning, but became “visibly nervous” when told he would have to be tested.
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As Law&Crime previously reported, Pettey testified that beginning in 2021, she began experiencing excruciating pain in her back and abdomen, dizziness, and nausea. She was unable to keep down solid food and lost around 40 pounds. Pettey said that Mann would give her “multivitamins” that he brought her from his chiropractic office.
When she finally got to a hospital, she was diagnosed with lead toxicity — and an investigation got underway. Police obtained a search warrant in May 2023 to investigate Mann’s home and office for sources of lead, eventually finding it at his office, which was undergoing construction.
Pettey testified that Mann isolated her from her family while she was in the hospital and “begged” her to stop the investigation.
During the trial, an insurance agent who worked with Mann on one of several life insurance policies he sought testified about his customer’s suspicious requests. He told the court that when someone attempts to buy multiple policies on one person, it prompts an investigation. The agent said that Mann had taken out policies at other companies, saying, “If someone is going to go around and get a whole bunch of policies at different companies, it’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall.”
Mann could have been awarded over a million dollars as a payout if Pettey had died. In order to circumvent any questions about her health, Mann made Pettey wear ankle weights at the doctors office to hide the massive weight loss she experienced due to his poisoning.
Mann also attempted to claim that it was not just his then-wife who was the victim of lead poisoning. He told a nurse practitioner that he and the couple’s children could have been poisoned as well. Court documents described the ruse, which entailed Mann claiming that he had performed an X-ray on himself and found an unknown substance. When the nurse practitioner informed him that another X-ray was needed to determine how long the possible lead had been there, Mann became “visibly nervous.”
He ultimately submitted to another X-ray, which revealed that the lead in his system had only been there for a short time.
Pettey testified that the poisoning left her unable to have any more children, and she still feels pain in her hands.
A jury deliberated for less than three hours total before finding Mann guilty of attempted murder. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to life in prison.
