Post Mortem | The Gaslighting of Hannah Pettey

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2:32Welcome to Postmortem. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Natalie Morales stepping in to host today to talk with Anne-Marie Green about a story she reported on. It is about the attempted murder of Hannah Petty, who incredibly survived after being poisoned with lead. Anne-Marie, thanks for joining me. Thank you. It's good to be here. And what an incredible story and a survivor's story as well. But this isn't the first poisoning case that we've unpacked together, right?

3:01Natalie Morales:Actually, it is not. The last time we spoke about a poisoning case, it was a case that you had worked on. Angela Craig. And we did this actually live on stage at CrimeCon. It was about a Colorado dentist who was accused and then recently convicted of poisoning his wife using milkshakes. And milkshakes actually sort of make an appearance in this case as well. Yeah, we're going to get into all of that. First, though, a reminder, as always, to our listeners that if you haven't listened to this 48 Hours episode yet, you can always find the full audio just below this episode in your podcast feed Go take a listen, then come on back and join us for the conversation.

3:41All right, it was January 2022. Hannah Petty, she was a 22-year-old Alabama mother of two, and she was admitted to the hospital following six months of suspicious symptoms. By the time she got there, though, doctors said that she had just hours left to live. Now, investigators believe she had been poisoned, and they quickly zeroed in on two possible suspects, and that would be Hannah's mother, Nicole, and Hannah's husband, Brian. Now, I have to tell you, Anne-Marie, as I was watching this episode, I kept flip-flopping back and forth between the two, hearing their different stories and trying to figure out, okay, who is actually responsible for poisoning Hannah?

4:22Natalie Morales:You know what, Natalie, you're kind of not the only one. We had a lot of access in this case. Obviously, we had a victim who survived, so we could talk with her about her experience. But Hannah's mother, Nicole, we spoke to several times. Hannah, we spoke to several times. And then Brian, we were able to talk to. And this is over a span of a couple of years. And so with each interview, you sort of learn a little bit more. The people that we spoke to, particularly Hannah, you see her evolve and change over the years. Yeah, we're going to dive into that first interview, the first time you're meeting Hannah.

4:55And as you said, it is so rare in a case like this that we actually have a survivor to be able to talk with us. And when you first met her, what was the interview like? What was your impression of her mindset?

5:08Natalie Morales:It was two years ago, right? It's 2023. I really did feel like for Hannah, she had just been sort of spit out of this incredible roller coaster ride. Brian had been charged but had not gone to trial yet. And so she's kind of still stuck in limbo, still trying to figure out what happened to her. For a lot of what she went through, the memories were hazy. She sort of remembered the early days more than what happened to her in the hospital. She was in a coma for a lot of that time. And in fact, you know, there were a number of times throughout where she sort of was like, did Brian ask about me? You know, what did he say about me?

5:47Natalie Morales:You could tell that there was still a part of her that was still wondering, was there love? Was this by mistake? Could he have actually done this? Was everything that I thought, the life that I had built, was that all, you know, a mirage? So you could see that she was still wrestling with it. Yeah, I mean, it's very understandable that she was conflicted in all of this. But you do see her evolve and sort of grow, as you said. I was just so amazed by her composure. And she truly is a medical miracle. I mean, you see that X-ray of the lead impacted within her colon. It just lit up that X-ray. It was unbelievable to see that.

6:31Natalie Morales:Yeah, the reason she could not keep anything down and she was losing weight is because she literally had lead filling her digestive system. So she couldn't get the food down. She couldn't get the water down. It would go through and then come right back up. That's how much lead was in her system. The doctors did something that they had never done before. They irrigated her bowels. Like they had to literally, you know, flush this stuff out of her system. They did it 24-7, like around the clock until it was all out. They had never had to do anything like that before. They didn't even know if it would work.

7:05Natalie Morales:Part of the reason why they put her in this medically induced coma, it's also, as you see in the hour, you know, she had sort of liquid on her brain or in and around her brain and that stuff had to be taken out. The fact that she has survived is stunning. She is probably still going to be living with the side effects of this for her entire life. But think about this, Natalie, like every pain or ache she ever feels, she's going to wonder, is this the lead that's still in my system? That's going to be haunting her forever. It has to be so incredibly painful physically and emotionally, of course, what she went through.

7:44Now, in the hour, we do see that Hannah throughout seemed to try to make her marriage work, despite, though, some pretty big red flags. I mean, did their relationship start off that way, too?

7:57Natalie Morales:So, you know, she was very young, right? She's a teenager. He's much older, 10 years and 10 months, I believe she said. And it did not start out that way. She says that he would bring her flowers. He was really sweet. Those first six months, but then slowly she started getting these kind of red flags. So he was a little controlling. He would ask about, you know, the things that she wore. You know, if the skirt was above the knee, why are you wearing that? That if she was talking to, you know, she said she had been working at a restaurant for a little bit. And if she was talking to somebody there, a man there for a little bit longer, he would make comments.

8:35Natalie Morales:And by the time she's getting married, she is really wondering if she should go ahead with this. And Nicole says to her, you can back out at any time. You can have this baby. You don't need to be married. Just remember, everyone, she was already pregnant. But also, it was her wedding day. We hear stories all the time about people getting cold feet on their wedding day. It's a nerve-wracking decision. So once again, she put that to the side. But then there was this really concerning incident a couple years into their marriage. They went on a little vacation to North Carolina. And she tells this incredible story about the couple getting into a car accident.

9:15Natalie Morales:We had her retell it. We actually sat in a car with her. So I want to play some portion of that interview about this accident that didn't make it into the hour. I was asleep in the passenger seat and I woke up because like I don't know I think this smell woke me up because my like chest started burning like my nose started burning. What were you smelling? And it smelled like chemicals. I mean that's the only way to explain it was just like straight up chemicals. I wake up Elena and I turn to Brian and he has his shirt covered over his nose and I was like what is that smell? And he just shrugged his shoulders like he didn't give me an answer he just shrugged his shoulders and just kept straight staring straight ahead like with his shirt covered over his nose and then I put my my oh I forgot my feet were on the dashboard because that's how I was sleeping in the car and I put my feet down and it was like slopping wet on the floorboard and I told him I was like something spilled and he said oh okay or whatever a little bit of time goes by and he said I laid a jug of milk down in the back he said see if that's what spilled and so is that what you do sort of turn around yeah so I unbuckle so I unbuckle and I turned around like this and I'm like looking but it was like dark though so I'm like looking and then that's when the car went completely off the side of the road like this like straight into a ditch and it just kept going and going and I was just like holding on to the back of the seat and I remember like I hit my head on the window really hard I think I had a concussion because I started throwing up the next day and then we flipped the car sitting this way and then um it immediately hedges flames under my feet scary yes so she says Brian has no problem getting out of the car not attempting to help in any way She does eventually make her way out of the car, but then he tells her to tell police officers that she was the one driving.

11:28Natalie Morales:And she does. And that is what's on the police report now. She says at the time she thought it maybe had something to do with insurance. So she just sort of went along with what he said. I want to remind everyone we are talking about a very young woman here who's traumatized by this accident. And so she just kind of went along with it. It's unbelievable. I mean, hearing that story and that, as you said, was not in the hour. I mean, that's a giant red flag. But then there's the other huge red flag for me as a viewer when we learned that Hannah, she told Lieutenant McDiarmid that Brian had taken out a life insurance policy while they were still dating.

12:09I mean, I'd never even heard of that before. I didn't even know that was possible.

12:13Natalie Morales:Yeah. And, you know, Hannah was aware of the life insurance policy. Her friends said that Brian kind of framed it as like, well, this is something that adults do. You know, and of course, all of Hannah's friends are her age. Right. So he seems like the older, more knowledgeable man. But she does remember him saying, and she said this to me a couple of times, she remembers Brian saying things like, if only I had a million dollars, then I would really be able to get this chiropractic business to the next level. I mean, while she is still in the hospital, he is trying to take out more life insurance policies.

12:49Natalie Morales:They weren't all approved, but it would have been like$5 million if he had been successful. So here's the interesting thing is that while Hannah is in the hospital, let's remember, she's trying to survive this horrible ordeal. Brian insinuated that Nicole, her mother, might have actually been responsible for poisoning Hannah. Now, Brian's defense attorney suggested it was perhaps put into some daily milkshakes that Nicole would bring to Hannah. Yes. Brian also brought up, I thought this was interesting. There was a time during Hannah's childhood, I believe in second grade, where she had a lot of lapses from going to school because she was sick.

13:31She was in the hospital. And Brian's defense attorney again insinuated perhaps Nicole was responsible for poisoning her in the past and was now doing it again. I mean, was there any evidence of any of this?

13:43Natalie Morales:So Chad Morgan is Brian's defense attorney that we met. He wasn't his first defense attorney, but he was the one that ended up trying the case. He talked about these milkshakes and he said, you know, Nicole would come over to the house when Brian wasn't around. And no evidence of that at all. Right. No evidence that and Hannah said she doesn't drink milkshakes. Nicole said I was barely over there. I mean, he never liked me. So, you know, I certainly wasn't over there every day feeding her milkshakes. In regards to Hannah being sick in second grade, Chad Morgan did have evidence of that. We went over to his office and it's true that second grade nurse in elementary school had notes that indicated that, you know, she had seen Hannah several times, that Hannah complained about stomach aches, that eventually she was taken to UAB hospital and then she got better.

14:37Natalie Morales:When I spoke to Hannah and her mother about that period of time, they basically said, yeah, I was sick and then I got better. We went to the hospital and got better. That happens sometimes. Zero evidence that Hannah was poisoned in any way, shape or form in second grade. But certainly there was evidence that the nurse remembers her being quite ill. Did Lieutenant McDiarmid look into Nicole much at all? It seemed like she was cleared pretty quickly. McDiarmid says she behaved like a concerned mother, whereas Brian didn't seem to be behaving the way you expect. But it was really more than that. They knew from the doctors that Hannah was intentionally poisoned.

15:17Natalie Morales:And based on just the volume of lead in her system, they believed that it was something that was probably happening on a daily basis. Only Brian had access to Hannah on a daily basis. And Nicole just didn't have that.

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19:09Natalie Morales:Welcome back. It's not exactly correct. Hannah doesn't really remember. And so after the interview was over, I said, Nicole, you know, why don't you sit down with us? Because you have a much better memory of what was going on with Hannah while she was sick, while she was in the hospital. And we do this first interview. And I thought, what happened to the woman who was doing all this talking in the other room? She was very limited and conservative in the way she answered my questions. So once we were finished, she told me a story that kind of put it a little bit in perspective. She said that while Hannah was in the hospital and she thought her daughter was going to die, she was praying.

19:54Natalie Morales:And she actually got up and found like a closet where nobody was and closed it and got on her knees and was praying to God to save her daughter. And then she realized that it was the wrong prayer. and she began praying to God that she could forgive whoever did this to her. And she believed it was Brian, that she could forgive Brian. And once she started praying to develop a forgiving heart, she believes that Hannah's health turned the corner. And she did not want to shatter that. She did not want to say anything that would allow a lack of forgiveness to seep into her heart. Wow. Well, let's go back to the investigation because Lieutenant McDermott clearly felt that it was the life insurance policies that were the clear financial motive.

20:50But was there any more concrete evidence that police had against Brian at that time?

20:56Natalie Morales:Hannah said that he made her take these supplements every day, which investigators believed, it was their theory, that those may have been the capsules that were filled with lead. Brian, of course, denies that completely. Yeah, but interestingly, I don't think they found any evidence of the pills anywhere, right? Or the capsules. You would think, you know, yes, he's a chiropractor. He probably has access to supplements and all of that. But they never could really find the vehicle with which the lead was administered, right? They never found any capsules, any empty capsules, any filled capsules, anything at the house.

21:35Natalie Morales:Brian told them they could search and they did a thorough search. What is sort of interesting is that Hannah told us that Brian would keep tons of supplements at the house. But when investigators got there, they didn't find anything. doctors asked him listen can you just bring in these supplements or these capsules whatever whatever you were giving her and you know he doesn't and i thought what was so evasive of brian is when he sends pictures of you know what are over-the-counter supplements that a lot of us have at home i mean that right there's like come on yeah so it was in september 2022 brian was arrested.

22:16He pleaded not guilty to attempted murder. But as you were talking here, you know, police really didn't have any concrete physical evidence to link the lead to Brian until they got a phone call, which was very key in the case from Danny Hill, who's a contractor who had worked in Brian's office to install what is sort of like a lead walls around the x-ray room. And investigators then they go and get a search warrant. They open the walls and get a piece of the lead from the walls. And I was at that point, I was like, OK, that's it. They've got their evidence. Was that the smoking gun, Anne-Marie?

22:56I mean, almost.

22:57Natalie Morales:The prosecution told me that it's really important, if you can, to figure out a way to put the murder weapon in the hands of the defendant. They had already arrested Brian, which I thought was pretty risky to arrest him before you even knew, you know, where the lead was coming from and you don't have the capsules. So this this was one of two key pieces that was missing. You know, at least they know that he had access to lead. Well, Brian was freed on half a million dollar bond, but he was required to report to jail every weekend, which, again, I was surprised. I mean, I'd never heard of weekend jail before that exists.

23:32Natalie Morales:Yeah, we asked McDermott about it. He said he's not sure exactly why he got that. But his guess is that the judge kind of wanted to give him an opportunity to work and support his family. He's got two little kids at that point. Of course, he wasn't going to be working as a chiropractor. And so we know what ended up happening with him is he was living in a trailer in his grandmother's backyard. He said it was really difficult to find work because he had to always check in every Friday. So as rare as it is for us to hear directly from the victims, I mean, it's very rare that we get to interview the defendant before the trial.