A chiropractor from Alabama, accused of trying to murder his wife by contaminating her medication with lead, claims he himself was a target of poisoning.
Brian Mann, 36, is charged with attempted murder, with authorities alleging that he used lead from a construction site to taint his wife’s pills, as revealed in court documents reported by the Hartselle Enquirer.
According to her lawyer, Mann allegedly began providing his 25-year-old wife, Hannah Pettey, with pills in the summer of 2021, deceitfully presenting them as a means to boost her immune system while they were involved in a bitter divorce.
Pettey was reportedly hospitalized for two months in what authorities believed was a plot by Mann to “intentionally cause her to unwittingly ingest particles of lead.”
However, Mann’s attorneys insist their client was also subjected to lead poisoning within the couple’s home.
Authorities were reportedly sent to investigate possible sources of lead throughout the house, with Mann initially cooperating with investigators by handing over medications and vitamins Pettey was taking at the time of her hospitalization.
After conducting two separate searches, officials reportedly did not find evidence of a source of lead, with Mann telling police he was “still trying” to find a place for the couple’s children to be tested.
Shortly before Mann’s arrest, a nurse at Decatur General Hospital reportedly called the police after Mann told her “he did an X-ray on himself and observed a substance in his gut, which he believed to be lead,” according to an affidavit obtained by the Hartselle Enquirer.
When the nurse reportedly told him another X-ray was needed to determine the severity of the ingestion, Mann “became visibly nervous, and she thought he may leave.”
Following the second scan, the nurse practitioner told police that she did find a “substance in [Mann’s] colon,” but it “didn’t appear to have been there for very long.”
The affidavit, signed by Hartselle Police Capt. Alan McDearmond, reveals authorities subpoenaed Mann’s medical records and “believes the medical records indicate [he] intentionally ingested lead to provide the impression he was also being poisoned.”
Shortly after Mann’s visit to the hospital, a tipster called local authorities to inform them he had been involved in a construction project installing lead in the walls of an X-ray room at Mann’s chiropractor office.
The caller reportedly revealed he had left the extra lead with Mann.
Mann was subsequently arrested in September 2022.
Mann’s defense team has looked to block evidence from being presented in court, reportedly claiming the collection was done so in an improper manner, with 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,” according to the Hartselle Enquirer.
Both the prosecuting attorney and Mann’s defense team did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Mann was released on $500,000 bond and faces trial after pleading not guilty to attempted murder.
