The Gaslighting of Hannah Pettey

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2:00When you look in the mirror and you see the tracheotomy scar, does it bring back those memories? It does. Yes, it does. I just try not to dwell on it, you know? Have you thought about what you'll tell your children in the future?

2:27I started first feeling like I was getting sick of August 2021. I started getting severe abdominal pain. I was feeling so nauseous all the time. November is when it started getting really, really bad. How worried were you at this point? So on the bad days, I would ask, you need to go to a doctor, what do you want to do? And she said, no, I'm okay, it'll go away. And most of the time, it did. I mean, I had lost so much weight. Things finally got to the point where I said, hey, you're losing a lot of weight. That's when I started getting concerned. Why did you take it or see the nurse practitioner, Carrie Griffith?

3:08She was yellow. By that time, she was pure yellow. Her mom grabbed my arm and she said, promise me, whatever this is, you'll find it. She was terrified. I was just in such immense pain all the time. It just progressively got worse and worse. And I thought, this little girl has two babies, and she is dying is what I'm thinking. That's what it looks like. She's dying, yes. We've got to get her help, and we've got to get her help fast.

3:40I insisted she go to the hospital. And did she go? She did. What was that drive like? Oh, fast, fast. I just remember just praying and driving. That's all I did was just praying and driving. How long do you wait in that emergency room? Ten hours. And then she said, Mom, something's wrong. And then that's when she broke into the seizure. That was terrible. Just complete jerking and foaming and eyes just never stopped moving back and forth. When you see a picture of Hannah when she was in the hospital, I think everyone had the same thought. What on earth put her in this position, what could have made her body deteriorate to the point where she's unrecognizable?

4:22It's heartbreaking. How close was Hannah to dying? I don't think it's an overstatement to say hours, maybe days. Someone said, we figured out what's wrong with you. It's lead poisoning. You've been lead poisoned. That's the lead. Yeah, that's just the shaving of the lead. Oh. Soft enough to scrape off with a knife and put in a little capsule? Absolutely. I was at that time a suspect. Everybody had to be a suspect. I'm going to ask you a direct question. Did you try to poison your wife? No. The first thing that Hannah said to my friends when she got home was she believed Nicole had concocted this whole thing.

5:05One of the other doctors I spoke to said, you have to leave because she is now in a protective order. I remember them saying either he's done it, she's done it, or you've done it. But someone is intentionally trying to kill your daughter.

5:25Ann Marie Green reports the gaslighting of Hannah Petty. In January 2022, the pain coursing through Hannah Petty's body for six months was hitting her harder than ever. It was unbearable. I was in the bed at this point for probably like a week straight. Were you even able to care for your kids? I did as much as I could. Hannah's son Lincoln was three and her daughter Gracie had just turned two, but Hannah was too sick to attend Gracie's birthday party. I was so weak that I couldn't hardly walk. I had a little office chair that would roll around in our house because I really didn't get out of the house.

6:11Hannah says her husband, Brian Mann, was there when she needed him the most. When I really started getting sick is when he was the sweetest to me. Brian was a chiropractor, but he says he could not diagnose what was wrong with Hannah. I had no idea. That's out of my forte. That's someone that I would refer out, refer to a specialist, which is what I wanted to do. On January 18, 2022, Hannah checked in with her mother, Nicole Petty. After they hung up, Nicole says she was haunted by something she heard in her daughter's voice. Just, you know, that feeling. I knew something was wrong. I mean, I called and called and called and texted.

6:53Hannah called me, finally, but she wasn't able to speak. So she just kind of gasped. And then she asked me, she said, Mom, can you take me to the hospital? Brian was at work, so Nicole rushed over and drove Hannah to UAB, the hospital at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. While there, Nicole took several photos and videos. The doctor said, obviously, she is very sick. I want to keep her, but there's no way that they're going to let me keep her. Her vitals are stable. I said, if you send her home, she's going to die. It was right then that Hannah suffered a terrifying seizure, and in the frenzy, she ripped off her hospital gown.

7:33For Nicole, that moment is frozen in time. She was skinning bones. They told me that she was actually starving to death when we got there. They said she had hours to live. One doctor directed her anger at Nicole. She's like, does she live with you? Like, obviously, someone should have seen that this person was dying. You know, this person was starving to death. She said, who is responsible for her? What did you say? And I said, she's married. And they said, she's married? The seizure was so severe, Hannah lost consciousness. Doctors wanted to talk with Hannah's husband. So Nicole says she texted Brian.

8:09Hey, Brian, Hannah had a seizure about two hours ago. She still has not come to yet. They said she could be out all day long. So I wanted to let you know, if she's not texting you, that is why. And I, of course, didn't get a response from him. So you don't get a text back from Brian? Never. It had been that way for years, she said. All through his marriage to Hannah, Brian ignored Nicole. Never seen him the whole time they were married. Never any interaction with him whatsoever. Never for any family gatherings, any holidays. He just never came? Never. Brian didn't like you? No. That night, Brian never got back to Nicole.

8:50But he had learned about Hannah's condition from his mother, who was in touch with Nicole. He arranged for child care and began driving. He got to the hospital around 9.30 that night. Under COVID restrictions, the hospital was allowing only one visitor at a time. And with Nicole inside, Brian was kept out. I was very irritated that Nicole was not switching out with me, letting me in. because I stood outside of that hospital for a long time trying to get in that room with Hannah. But eventually, Nicole did come out and Brian was allowed in. It must have been shocking to see her in that hospital bed like that.

9:32Yes, but I was glad that she was there and people were trying to figure something out. When Brian left to go to work, Nicole went in. Hannah was still unconscious and had been that way for nearly 48 hours. Nurses had just finished checking on her when Nicole bent over her daughter. I kissed her head and I said, I love you. Her eyes just popped open and she said, I love you too. Nicole says nurses were amazed and rushed to her side. I just started crying and Hannah said, have I not been talking? But Hannah's ordeal was far from over. Days after Hannah was admitted, Nicole says doctors put her in a medical coma while they drained the excess fluid from within her brain.

10:18And then they had to paralyze her because even being in a coma, there was just so much fluid in her brain that any type of movement, she would have died. But Nicole, it's like things are going from bad to worse. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever give up hope? No, oh no. Never. Not one time. Brian says he was wondering why Hannah's health had gone downhill so quickly the day Nicole had picked her up and drove to the hospital. That is curious how bad she got from getting in the car with her mother to being admitted to the hospital. His dislike and distrust of Nicole boiled over. She is a cruel person. She was not happy with the fact that Hannah seemed happy being with me.

11:26Eight days after Hannah was admitted to the hospital, Her neurologist told Nicole that doctors had figured out what was causing Hannah's symptoms. Her exact words were, she has an astronomical amount of lead inside of her. Lead. It was an unusual finding. And Nicole says doctors told her they had never seen a patient like Hannah. They said her colon was so packed, full of lead, it was almost 100 % lead. There was no room in her stomach to hold anything. It was just complete lead. Plus, there was lead just in her bones, just everywhere. Doctors told Nicole there was no way Hannah could have ingested all that lead by accident.

12:11It had to be deliberate, and they told her exactly what they thought. They let me know that this is an attempted murder. The hospital reported Hannah's case to the Department of Human Resources, DHR. the state agency that protects vulnerable adults. Hospital administrators immediately put Hannah in a secluded room with someone at the door to keep all visitors out. Nicole says she and Brian were told to leave and were no longer allowed to see Hannah because they were considered possible suspects. I was deciding myself because I had to leave her. They had to send me away from the hospital. I immediately started thinking, this is Nicole.

12:55This has to be Nicole pointing fingers. I didn't really think it would get anywhere because I thought it was, again, just Nicole making waves to make waves. Hannah's mom just caused so many problems, and not so much directly at me, but she was just awful to Hannah. Brian says Hannah told him that Nicole could be critical of her. Why don't you put makeup on? Are you sure you should eat that? Just stuff like that all the time. I would say, why do you want this woman in your life? And all she could come back to, she's my mom. She's my mom. And that's really the only defense she had for her was she's my mom.

13:38Hannah denies Brian's allegations. She did move away from Nicole and got her own apartment in June 2017, the month she turned 18 years old. She had just graduated from high school. That's when she met Brian, a 29-year-old chiropractor with his own business. He was very, very sweet in the beginning, and, you know, he's very charming, good-looking. And, yeah, I really liked him. Sounds like it was almost sort of instant attraction. Yes, it was a head over heels. Everything was just working right. Within weeks of Brian's first date with Hannah, His friend Walker Snyder says Brian told him Hannah was the one.

14:24I'm like, man, you just met her like a week ago. Or she's 18. She doesn't know what she wants. She doesn't even know what she doesn't want. And he's like, no, we both know what we want. It wasn't long before Hannah told friends she was pregnant. How long were you guys dating before you proposed? We started dating in November. I believe I proposed after Valentine's Day, so not too long. Were you nervous? I was. I take marriage very seriously, and so yeah, I was definitely nervous about it. Hannah was nervous too. She says she had noticed that Brian could be controlling, but she plunged ahead, at least until her wedding day in May 2018.

15:12Hannah's friend, Allison Holmes. Right before we were all about to walk down the aisle, Hannah expressed to us that she was very nervous, she had cold feet. We told her a hundred times over, you don't have to do it. If this is cold feet, it is what it is. But if this is uncertainty, walk away. It's not too late to walk away. In the end, Hannah smiled through her ceremony and married Brian. When you walked up to the altar and you looked at him, you had no questions. I mean, I did. I mean, deep down, I did. I was like, I don't really know if I'm making the right decision and everything. The couple moved into Brian's home and started their lives together.

15:54How was he as a husband? For the most part, he was really good as a husband. I mean, it was good and bad. We got in a lot of physical fights, so that's a bad thing. But it wasn't all the time, though. You know, like as I'm listening to you talk, you know, it sounds almost a little bit like you're explaining away the bad stuff. Do you think you did that in the marriage a bit? Yeah, I definitely did, I think. Yeah. Yeah, my mom tells me that too. Even their son's birth was a minefield of emotion. I was nine months pregnant and I had started bleeding. And so I went to the hospital, and he came in, and he got so angry at me.

16:40And he was yelling at me. And he shouldn't have been out walking in this heat. Like, that was so stupid and irresponsible. He was acting so just outrageous that the nurses even told her, if you need us to do something, then you say this specific word, and we'll know that we need to step in and intervene in what's going on. Hannah never used that safe word, but as time went on, Brian says the couple came to an understanding. I would say, Hannah, talk to me. I am on your side. I'm your biggest fan, your biggest supporter. But one day she said, I'm going to trust you, and I want to do this with you, and I want to build this with you.

17:25From then on, it just got better and better. That's when I started to really fall in love with him. The couple had another child, a daughter, and life was good, they say, until Hannah began to feel sick and went to the hospital emergency room in January 2022. She was left fighting for her life, and doctors were trying to help her, but they told Nicole they had to know more. They said the only way she gets this much lead in her system is to ingest it. It's to ingest it. They said she had to have ingested it. I remember them saying, we don't care if you give her a crack. We just want to know about it.

18:05We have to know everything she's taken. And that's when Nicole remembered something that she'd completely overlooked. Hannah told her that Brian had given her special supplements, capsules, each and every night.

18:25Doctors kept asking Nicole what Hannah had been eating in the months leading up to her hospital stay. From what they can see, it looks like someone has gave her lead every single day for at least three months. Was Hannah eating something that contained lead? Nicole says she had no idea because she hardly ever visited her daughter in the months before the seizure and never if Brian was home. I could only go when he was working and I would have to leave before he got off work. I never actually run into him. Yeah, he didn't come home until I left. As doctors pressed her for information, Nicole remembered Hannah telling her about special supplement capsules that Brian placed on her nightstand every night.

19:11Nicole says it didn't strike her as unusual because Brian was a chiropractor. But she told doctors anyway. I told them that I know that they were big on supplements.

19:25Nicole says doctors repeatedly asked Brian to bring in the capsules described by Hannah. But he never did. Instead, he gave them this photo of common over-the-counter supplements. DHR investigators, who were getting information from Hannah's doctors, contacted Lieutenant Alan McDiarmid of the Hartsell Police Department. They said that I needed to go arrest somebody for attempting to kill their wife. And I'm like, well, hold up. I mean, we can't just go arrest people. What are you talking about? Investigators told McDiarmid that doctors suspected Brian had given Hannah some type of lead-filled capsules over and over again.

20:12You can take a capsule and open it up, empty the contents, and then put the lead in. McDearman told Brian about the hospital's allegations. McDearman said, your wife's been lead poisoned, and they think it was intentional, and they said, you're the number one suspect. So I was kind of dumbfounded. I didn't know what to think about that. McDearman asked Brian if the police could search his house, and he agreed. So I took him all through the house. I let him search my house. And we went through and tried to figure out what she was eating, pills, makeups, and things like that. McDearman says Brian provided a bottle of supplements and a laxative that he said Hannah had taken.

20:55Hannah says you made her take supplements. That is not true. Ryan blamed all his problems on Nicole. I immediately started thinking, this is Nicole. This has to be Nicole pointing fingers. Investigators removed the children from Brian's home. They were placed with his parents. He had supervised visitation. Nicole had just done so much over the years, and Hannah had told me so much about her that I just had no doubt Nicole was somehow stirring this all up. Ryan said he remembered something Hannah had told him that now seemed to hold more significance. In second grade, in a story that Hannah confirms, she recalled being so sick for so long that she visited the school nurse dozens of times.

21:48And she eventually got really bad and her mother took her to UAB. She says she remembers staying there about a week. Flash forward to 2022, Hannah was back at UAB Hospital. On January 29th, McDiarmid went to see Hannah for himself, but she was in a coma. I had no idea the condition she was in until I went to the hospital and saw her for myself. Doctors showed him Hannah's x-rays. What did you think? Oh gosh, I was just floored. I mean, her whole insides was lit up from the lead reacting to the x-ray. And it was crazy. McDiarmid asked Brian to come in. And at that point is when he refused to further cooperate with the investigation.

22:41On February 1st, McDiarmid cleared Nicole, and she was once again allowed to visit Hannah. How were you able to clear Nicole? You know, just through conversations, whether you could tell that she was very concerned about Hannah. She was the person that was caring for Hannah. It sounds to me like you just like Nicole's behavior. She acted the way you expect a concerned mother to act, and Brian didn't act the way you expected a concerned husband to act. That's correct. Is that evidence? That's not evidence. No. And the problem with this case was there was not a lot of evidence. Within days, McDermott received the results of the tests done at Brian and Hannah's home.

23:29Everything was negative. Did you ever find any capsules? Um, no. Did you ever find any supplements that were taintive? Um, no. Did you ever find evidence of lead being ground down or scraped or turned into little particles that could go into a capsule? No. So isn't that kind of a big hole in the theory? Well, he sold supplements. McDiarmid says he kept looking for the source of that lead. In mid-February, Hannah began to rally, and McDiarmid went to see her again. I told her in a very nice way, you know, why she was in the hospital and asked her, you know, do you have any idea who may have given you some substance?

24:18She said, no. Do you have any thoughts of self-harm? I mean, did you put yourself here? And she said, no. McDiarmid said Hannah was coherent one minute and not the next. She said she saw people coming out of the walls. When I first started talking to the medical staff, I mean, they didn't give her any hope. They said if she came out of this that she would really not have any cognitive functions. They didn't suspect that we would be able to even talk with her. Wow. They basically told us that we needed to do everything that we could because we didn't need to rely on her as a witness because they didn't think she would ever make it to that point.

25:01But Hannah surprised everyone by getting stronger each day with the help of a team of dedicated nurses. They were all kind of close to her age. They knew she had kids, and they would say to her, you've got your babies, you've got your babies. And I remember she just always got a life in her. When you mentioned the kids, she was like, I'm going to get better. I'm going to get out here and get better, you know. Nicole says Hannah did get better and stronger, strong enough that Hannah's neurologist told her the whole story. She grabbed my hand, and she just kind of started giving me a heart-to-heart about why they have strong reasons to believe that it was Brian.

25:45And what's the conversation like after that between you and Hannah? It was horrible. That was horrible. Sorry.

25:59Of everything that she went through, the heartbreak, the heartbreak was terrible. She just would sit there and cry.

26:10On March 3rd, after nearly two months, Hannah was well enough to leave the hospital.