A chiropractor from Alabama who is suspected of trying to kill his wife by putting lead in her medicines is adamant that he was poisoned as well.
According to court documents obtained by the Hartselle Enquirer, investigators claim that Brian Mann, 36, laced his wife’s medicines with lead from a construction job, leading to charges of attempted murder.
In the summer of 2021, while the couple was going through a difficult divorce, Mann allegedly started giving his wife, 25-year-old Hannah Pettey, medicines to boost her immune system, according to her lawyer.
According to reports, Mann allegedly planned to “intentionally cause her to unwittingly ingest particles of lead” by keeping Pettey in the hospital for two months.
Mann’s lawyers, however, maintain that their client also contracted lead poisoning in the couple’s house.
Mann apparently cooperated with investigators at first by giving them the vitamins and medications Pettey was taking at the time of her illness, and authorities were dispatched to look into potential sources of lead throughout the house.
Mann told police he was “still trying” to find a spot for the couple’s children to be tested, but officials said they found no indication of a lead source after two different searches.
According to an affidavit acquired by the Hartselle Enquirer, shortly before Mann was arrested, a nurse at Decatur General Hospital called the police after Mann informed her that “he did an X-ray on himself and observed a substance in his gut, which he believed to be lead.”
Mann allegedly “became visibly nervous, and she thought he may leave” when the nurse informed him that another X-ray was required to assess the extent of the consumption.
The nurse practitioner informed police after the second scan that although she had discovered a “substance in [Mann’s] colon,” it “didn’t appear to have been there for very long.”
Authorities allegedly subpoenaed Mann’s medical records and “believe the medical records indicate [he] intentionally ingested lead to give the impression he was also being poisoned,” according to the affidavit, which was signed by Hartselle Police Capt. Alan McDearmond.
A tipster called local police shortly after Mann’s hospital stay to report that he had been involved in a building project that entailed putting lead in the walls of an X-ray room at Mann’s chiropractor business.
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According to reports, the caller admitted that he had left Mann the additional lead.
In September 2022, Mann was subsequently taken into custody.
According to the Hartselle Enquirer, Mann’s defense team has attempted to prevent the evidence from being shown in court by arguing that the collection was carried out improperly, stating that the “procedure to extract the alleged lead from [Mann’s wife’s] urine was done in the back parking lot of the Hartselle Police Department using a five-gallon bucket and a strainer.”
Mann entered a not guilty plea to attempted murder, was freed on $500,000 bail, and will now stand trial.
