- When Hannah Pettey met well-respected chiropractor Brian Mann, it was love at first sight
- After a three month engagement, Hannah and Brian tied the knot
- In January 2022 Hannah was rushed to hospital where doctors discovered she had eight times the normal amount of lead in her system
- Then Brian was sentenced with her attempted murder
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When her handsome partner dropped down on one knee, Hannah Pettey, 18, couldn’t believe her luck.
As she said ‘yes’, it seemed Brian Mann, a 29-year-old well-respected chiropractor, was the best thing to happen to her.
Despite their 11-year age gap, and the fact they’d been together only four months, Brian had swept Hannah off her feet.
Even Brian’s friends thought the romance rather quick, but he’d told them beautiful Hannah was ‘The One’.
The only sticking point was Hannah’s mum, Nicole – she and her prospective son-in-law didn’t see eye to eye. In fact, Brian avoided his soon to be mum-in-law.
Still, after a three-month engagement, Hannah and Brian tied the knot.
Children soon followed, with the pair delighted to welcome a son and daughter.
They were a picture perfect family.
But in August 2021 Hannah was struck with agonising abdominal and back pain. As waves of nausea and vomiting took hold, she felt so weak she could barely stand.
Yet doctors couldn’t determine why the seemingly healthy young mum was sick.
As weight dropped off Hannah’s already slender frame, Brian was desperately concerned.
He rushed to help as she lay sick in bed, putting her vitamins and medications on her bedside table.
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Hannah thanked her lucky stars for such a caring husband.
By January 2022, Hannah had lost nearly 20 kilos, her skin was yellowing and she was wheeling herself around her home in an office chair. In fact, she was too sick even to go to her daughter’s second birthday party.
Then, Nicole got a phone call. ‘Mum, can you take me to the hospital?’ she heard Hannah mumble.
Nicole rushed her daughter to Emergency, where Hannah suffered a huge seizure.
She was placed into a medically induced coma to save her life.
Horrifyingly, doctors explained Hannah was starving to death with just hours to live.
Nicole begged them to save her daughter’s life and sent Brian urgent text messages, but got no reply.
As ever, Brian was ignoring her.
She then reached his mother, which prompted Brian to go to hospital.
Eight days later doctors had a shocking diagnosis. Hannah’s colon was almost completely filled with lead – a toxic metal causing organ damage and death.
She was so full of lead there was no room in her stomach for food. It was even in her bones.
There was no way she’d ingested this much by accident. It was poisoning.
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As Hannah fought for life, police searched her home for anything poisonous that Brian and the kids might ingest as well.
The investigation took a dark turn when detectives suggested either Nicole or Brian had poisoned Hannah.
Three months later, after extensive round the clock colonic irrigation to remove the lead, Hannah was discharged with the heartbreaking news – she couldn’t have any more children. She was just 22.
She also wrestled with the terrible idea that the man she loved, the father of her children, could have poisoned her.
She filed for divorce, but Brian pleaded with her, saying he loved her and the kids, so she dropped proceedings.
Police were convinced Brian had indeed been poisoning Hannah in a cruel and calculated way for months, but needed Hannah’s help to prove it.
When they asked if she wanted to sign a form to prove it was her choice to end the investigation, she had a change of heart.
Allowing them to continue, she also went ahead with the divorce.
Hannah told police she’d been in lots of pain one night and felt nausea, but Brian still insisted she take her vitamins. When she said ‘no’ he got angry.
Was that how he’d poisoned his wife?
Then a contractor named Danny Hill contacted authorities after hearing about the case.
He’d installed lead in an X-ray room at Brian’s practice, and had left the remainder of the lead sheets – so soft you could scrape small scraps off – with Brian.
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Police were convinced that far from trying to help Hannah with vitamin pills, Brian had laced them with tiny lead shavings in a despicable bid to get away with murder.
In September 2022 Brian was arrested for attempted murder.
Three year later in June 2025, Brian Thomas Mann appeared in Morgan County Court, Alabama.
‘Not guilty,’ he pleaded.
Hannah, who had once been so gravely ill, bravely gave evidence.
The court heard Brian had taken out five life insurances on her, three after she became ill. The payouts could have run into millions.
It was a compelling motive to murder.
Hannah said Brian had made her wear ankle weights at check-ups, so doctors wouldn’t notice her weight loss and notify the insurance company.
Hannah’s X-rays and scans were shown in court – her body a crime scene.
Doctors testified that Hannah had eight times the normal amount of lead in her system.
Brian’s defence lawyers claimed he had also been poisoned, and Nicole could have given Hannah milkshakes containing lead.
No-one bought the story, and the jury took just three hours to convict Mann.
In August 2025, Judge Charles Elliot sentenced him to life in jail.
Speaking to CBS 48 Hours, Hannah revealed that she still gets ‘creeped out’ at night thinking about what happened, and still faces health challenges.
Incredibly, she has forgiven Mann.
‘I just wish that he could change someday… for his family and children,’ she said.
