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Welcome to Postmortem. I'm 48 hours correspondent Natalie Morales stepping in to host today [music]
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to talk with Amarie Green about a story she reported on. It is about the attempted murder of Hannah Petty who
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incredibly survived after being poisoned with lead. Ann Marie, thanks for joining
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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
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the first poisoning case that we've unpacked together. Right. Actually, it is not. The last time we spoke about a
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poisoning case, it was a case that you had worked on, uh, Angela Craig. And we did this actually live on stage at Crime
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Con. It was about a Colorado dentist who was accused and then recently convicted
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of poisoning his wife using milkshakes. and milkshakes actually sort of make an appearance in
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this case as well. >> Yeah, we're going to get into all of that. All right, it was January 2022.
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Hannah Petty, she was a 22-year-old Alabama mother of two and she was admitted to the hospital following 6
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months of suspicious symptoms. By the time she got there, though, doctors said that she had just hours left to live.
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Now, investigators believe she had been poisoned. And they quickly zeroed in on two possible suspects, and that would be
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Hannah's mother, Nicole, and Hannah's husband, Brian. Now, I have to tell you, Anarie, as I was watching this episode,
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I kept flip-flopping back and forth between the two, hearing their different stories and trying to figure out, okay,
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who is actually responsible for poisoning Hannah? You know what, Natalie? You're kind of not the only
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one. We had a lot of access in this case. Obviously, we had a victim who survived, so we could talk with her
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about her experience, but Hannah's mother, Nicole, we spoke to several times. Hannah, we spoke to several
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times, and then Brian we were able to talk to. And this is over a span of a couple of years. Um, and so with each
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interview, you sort of learn a little bit more. The people that we spoke to, particularly Hannah, you see her evolve
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and change over the years. Yeah, we're going to dive into that first interview, the first time you're meeting Hannah.
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And 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
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when you first met her, what was the interview like? What was your impression of her mindset? It was 2 years ago,
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right? It's 2023. I really did feel like for Hannah, she had just been sort of spit out of this incredible roller
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coaster ride. Brian had been charged but had not gone to trial yet. And so she's
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kind of still stuck in limbo, still trying to figure out what happened to her. For a lot of what she went through,
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the memories were hazy. She sort of remembered the early days more than what happened to her in the hospital. She was
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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
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like, "Did Brian ask about me? You know, what did he say about me?" you could tell that there was still a part of her
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that um was still wondering was there love? Was this by mistake? Could he have actually done this? Was
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everything that I thought the life that I had built, was that all, you know, a mirage? So, you could see that she was
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still wrestling with it. >> Yeah. I mean, it's very understandable that she was conflicted in all of this,
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but you do see her evolve and sort of grow as you said. I I was just so amazed by her composure and she truly is a
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medical miracle. I mean, you see that X-ray of the lead impacted within her colon. It was it just lit up that X-ray.
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It was unbelievable to see that. Yeah. The reason she could not keep anything down and she was losing weight is
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because she literally had lead filling her digestive system. So, she couldn't get the food down. She couldn't get the
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water down. it would go through and then come right back up. That's how much lead
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was in her system. Um, the doctors did something that they had never done before. They irrigated her bowels. Like
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they had to literally, you know, flush this stuff out of her system. They did it 24/7, like around the clock until it
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was all out. They had never had to do anything like that before. They didn't even know if it would work. It's part of
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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
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of liquid and on her brain or in and around her brain and that stuff had had to be taken out. The fact that she has
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survived is stunning. Um she is probably still going to be living with the um side effects of this for her entire
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life. But think about this, Natalie. Like every pain or ache she ever feels, she's going to wonder is this is this
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the lead that's still in my system that's going to be haunting her forever. has to be so incredibly painful
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physically and emotionally of course what she went through. Now in the hour we do see that Hannah throughout seemed
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to try to make her marriage work despite though some pretty big red flags. I mean
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did their relationship start off that way too? So you know she was very young right? She's a teenager. Um he's much
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older 10 years and 10 months I believe she said. Um and it did not start out that way. She says that he would bring
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her flowers. He was really sweet th those first 6 months. But then slowly she started getting these kind of red
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flags. So he was a little controlling. He would ask about, you know, the things that she wore. You know, if the skirt
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was above the knee, why are you wearing that? If she was talking to, you know, she said she had been working at a
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restaurant for a little bit. And if she was talking to somebody there, a man there for a little bit longer, he would
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make comments. And by the time she's getting married, she is really wondering um if she should go ahead with this. And
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Nicole says to her, "You can back out at any time. You can have this baby. You don't need to be married cuz just
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remember everyone, she was already pregnant." But also, it was her wedding day. We hear stories all the time about
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people getting cold feet on their wedding day. It's a nerve-wracking decision. So once again, she put that to
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the side. But then there was this really concerning incident. A couple years into
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their marriage, they went on a little vacation to North Carolina and she tells this incredible story about the couple
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getting into a car accident. Um, we had her retell it. We actually sat in a car with her. So, I want to play some
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portion of that interview about this accident that didn't make it into the hour. I was asleep in the passenger seat
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and I woke up because like I don't know I think the smell woke me up because my like chest started burning like my nose
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started burning. >> What were you smelling? >> And it smelt like chemicals. I mean
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that's the only way to explain it. It was just like straight up chemicals. I wake up. I went up and I turned to Brian
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and he has his shirt covered over his nose and I was like, "What is that smell?" And he just shrugged his
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shoulders. Like he didn't give me an answer. He just shrugged his shoulders and just kept stra staring straight
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ahead like with his shirt covered over his nose. And then I put my my oh I forgot my feet were on the dashboard cuz
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that's how I was sleeping in the car. And I put my feet down and it was like slopping wet on the floorboard.
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And I told him I was like something spilled. And he said oh okay or whatever. Little bit of time goes by and
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he said, "I laid a jug of milk down in the back." He said, "See if that's what spilled."
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>> And so, is that what you do? Sort of turn around. >> Yeah. So, I unbuck. You want me to
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unbuckle? So, I unbuckled and I turned around like this and I'm like looking, but it was like dark though. So, I'm
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like looking and then that's when the car went completely off the side of the road
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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
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the seat. And I remember like I hit my head on the window really hard. I think I had a concussion cuz I started
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throwing up the next day. And then we flipped the car sitting this way and then um it immediately hitches flames
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under my feet. >> Scary. Yes. So, she says Brian has no problem getting out of the car, not
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attempting to help in any way. She does eventually make her way out of the car, but then he tells her to tell police
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officers that she was the one driving and she does and that is what's on the police report now. She says at the time
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she thought it maybe had something to do in with insurance. So, she just sort of
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went along with what he said. I want to remind everyone we are talking about a very young woman here who's you know
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traumatized by this accident and so she just kind of went along with it. It's unbelievable. I mean hearing that story
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and 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
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for me as a viewer when we learned that Hannah, she told Lieutenant McDerman that Brian had taken out a life
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insurance policy while they were still dating. I mean, I had never even heard of that before. I didn't even know that
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was possible. Yeah. And and you know, Hannah was aware of the life insurance policy. Her friends said that Brian kind
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of framed it as like, well, this is something that adults do, you know, and of course all of Hannah's friends are
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are her age, right? So, he seems like the older, more knowledgeable man, but she does remember him saying, and she
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said this to me a couple of times, she remembers Brian saying things like, "If only I had a million dollars, then I
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would really be able to get this chiropractic business to the next level." I mean, while she is still in
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the hospital, he is trying to take out more life insurance policies. They weren't all approved, but it would have
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been like $5 million if he had been successful. So, here's the interesting thing is that while Hannah is in the
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hospital, let's remember she's, you know, trying to survive this horrible ordeal, Brian insinuated that Nicole,
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her mother, might have actually been responsible for poisoning Hannah. Now, Brian's defense attorney suggested it
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was perhaps put into some daily milkshakes that that Nicole would bring to Hannah.
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>> Yes. Brian also brought up, I thought this was interesting. There was a time during Hannah's childhood, I believe in
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second grade, where she had a lot of uh lapses from going to school because she was sick. She was in the hospital. And
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Brian's defense attorney again insinuated perhaps Nicole was responsible for poisoning her in the
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past and was now doing it again. I mean, is was there any evidence of any of this? So Chad Morgan is Brian's defense
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attorney that we met. He wasn't his first defense attorney, but he was the one that ended up trying the case. He
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talked about these milkshakes and um he said, you know, Nicole would come over to the house when Brian wasn't around
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and no evidence of that at all, right? No evidence that as you and Hannah said she doesn't drink milkshakes. Nicole
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said I was barely over there. I mean, he never liked me. So, I you know, I certainly wasn't over there every day
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feeding her milkshakes. In regards to Hannah being sick in second grade, Chad Morgan did have evidence of that. We
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went over to his office and it's true that second grade nurse in elementary school had notes that indicated that,
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you know, she had seen Hannah several times, that Hannah complained about stomach aches, that eventually she was
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taken to UAB hospital and then she got better. Um, when I spoke to Hannah and her mother about that period of time,
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they they basically said, "Yeah, I was sick and then I got better. We went to the hospital and got better." That
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happens sometimes. Um, zero evidence that Hannah was poisoned in any way, shape, or form in second grade, but
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certainly there was evidence that that the nurse remembers her being quite ill. Did Lieutenant McDer look into Nicole
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much at all? It seemed like he she was cleared pretty quickly. McDarman says she behaved like a concerned mother
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whereas Brian didn't seem to behaving the way you expect. But it was really more than that. They knew from the
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doctors that Hannah was intentionally [music] poisoned. And based on just the volume of lead in her system, they
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believe that it was something that was probably happening on a daily basis. Only Brian had access to Hannah on a
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daily basis. All right. Well, Amry, you also interviewed Hannah's mother, [music]
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Nicole. Was she eager to share her side of the story? >> She was not. Um, the first interview
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that we did, the first time we went down to Huntsville, it was really just to talk to Hannah, but Nicole was there um
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to be supportive. She was in another room and but she was she was talking the whole time to our producer and she was
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saying things like, you know, that's not exactly correct. Hannah doesn't really remember. And so after the interview was
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over, I said to Nicole, you know, why don't you sit down with us because you have a much better memory of what was
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going on with Hannah while she was sick, while she was in the hospital. And we do
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this first interview and I thought, what happened to the woman who was doing all
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this talking in the other room? She was very limited um and conservative in the way she answered my questions. So once
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we were finished, she told me a story that kind of put it a little bit in perspective. Um she said that while
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Hannah was in the hospital and she thought her daughter was going to die, she was praying and she actually got up
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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.
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[snorts] And then she realized that it was the wrong prayer. And she began praying to
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God that she could forgive whoever did this to her. And she believed it was Brian, that she could forgive Brian. And
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once she started praying to to develop a forgiving heart, she believes that Hannah's health turned the corner. And
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she did not want to shatter that. She did not want um to say anything that would allow
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a a lack of forgiveness to seep into her heart. >> Wow. Well, let's go back to the
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investigation because Lieutenant McDerman clearly felt that it was the life insurance policies that were the
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clear financial motive, but was there any more concrete evidence that police had against Brian at that time? Um
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Hannah said that he made her take these supplements every day which investigators believed it's was their
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theory that those may have been the capsules that were filled with lead. Brian of course denies that completely.
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>> Yeah. But interestingly I don't think they found any evidence of the pills anywhere, right? Or the capsules. You
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would think, you know, yes, he's a chiropractor, probably has access to supplements and all of that, but they
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never could really find the the the vehicle with which the lead was administered, right? They never found
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any capsules, any empty capsules, any filled capsules, anything at the house. Brian told them they could search and
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they did a thorough search. What is sort of interesting is that Hannah told us that Brian would keep tons of
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supplements at the house, but when investigators got there, they didn't find anything. Um doctors asked him,
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"Listen, can you just bring in these supplements or these capsules, whatever, whatever you were giving her?" And you
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know, he doesn't. And I thought what was so evasive of Brian is when he sends pictures of, you know, what are
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over-the-counter supplements that a lot of us have at home. I mean, that right there is like, come on. Yeah. So, it was
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in September 2022, Brian was arrested. He pleaded not guilty to attempted murder. But as you were talking here,
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you know, police really didn't have any concrete physical evidence to link the lead to Brian until they got a phone
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call, which was very key in the case from Danny Hill, who's a contractor who had worked in Brian's office to install
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what is sort of like lead walls around the X-ray room. And investigators then they go and get a search warrant. They
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open the walls and get a piece of the lead from the walls. And I I was at that point I was like, "Okay, that's it.
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They've got their evidence." Was that the smoking gun, Amarie? I mean, almost. The prosecution told me that it's really
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important if you can to figure out a way to put the murder weapon in the hands of
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the defendant. They had already arrested Brian, which I thought was pretty risky
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to arrest him before you even knew, you know, where the lead was coming from. And you don't have the capsules. So this
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this was one of two key pieces that were was missing. You know, at least they know that he had access to lead. Well,
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Brian was freed on half million dollar bond, but he was required to report to jail every weekend, which again, I was
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surprised. I mean, I'd never heard of weekend jail before that exists. >> Yeah, we asked uh Madame about it. Um he
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said he's not sure exactly why he got that, but his guess is that the judge kind of wanted to give him an
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opportunity to work and support his family. He's got two little kids at that point. Um of course he wasn't going to
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be working as a chiropractor. And so what we know what ended up happening with him is he was living in a trailer
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in his grandmother's backyard. Um he said it was really difficult to find work because he had to always check in
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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
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interview the defendant before the trial and you had that opportunity. I mean we
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saw him with the ankle monitor. You're talking to him, sitting on the bench with him. We did. We, you know, we
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interviewed him for a few hours and then we went on out to a park and then we were able to talk to him again there
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talking about what it was like to come to that very park with his kids and the things that he misses about his family
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and it was a really interesting conversation but also very frustrating. I found him to be evasive to the point
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where a few times I'm like, "Can you just answer the question?" Like, I'm going to ask you again, Brian, this
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direct question. I need a direct answer. Now, keep in mind, he flat out denied poisoning Hannah. I asked him directly
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and he said, "No." But I left there not knowing whether I I felt anything about his guilt or innocence. I had no idea.
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So, it was June 2025. Brian's trial finally gets underway. Brian's defense team said that the state lacked
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clear-cut evidence. I was shocked though at trial, they didn't present a single witness. I mean, what was the defense's
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strategy with that? I mean, you were shocked. I was shocked because the last time we had spoken to Chad Morgan before
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the trial, he really kind of talked a a big game. I mean, he's a like I don't know if you could really tell you. I
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know we show those bodybuilder pictures. He's huge. You know, he's quite a presence. Um, and he's a former police
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officer. I really thought he was going to come out like gang busters and he just didn't. And you know, part of the
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his argument was um the state didn't prove their case. The state doesn't even have a single capsule or supplement and
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they searched his house. And so he thought that would be, you know, strong enough. Chad Morgan says it was kind of
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like a team decision to go forward simply poking holes in the prosecution's case. So the jury then gets the case on
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a Wednesday afternoon. The very next day, they come back, they return a verdict, guilty. And you spoke to a
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juror who called Brian a monster. I mean, why do you think they were so clearly um convinced of his guilt? so
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quickly. Here's the thing. Sometimes defendants testify even when they don't testify. And the jury was watching Brian
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the entire time, at least with the juror that that we spoke to basically said he
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did himself no favors. He was smirking. He was making faces. They did not like him. did not like his
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behavior and felt that he acted like a guilty person, at least like a person that didn't care. Well, in August 2025,
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Brian was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. He's now appealing that verdict. After everything
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that Hannah went through with her two beautiful kids. I mean, how is she doing today? She's amazing. Um, with each
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interview she has gotten stronger, clearer, but she is every bit as sweet as she appears on camera. You know, once
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again, I'm going to reiterate, she was very young when she met Brian, and she is not that same person now. She
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went back to college. She got her, you know, teaching degree. She is now a teacher. Like, she is someone who makes
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things happen. Um Hannah and Brian are still married. Uh she has not been able to get a divorce yet. The criminal case
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really complicated the divorce proceedings. A lot of stuff had to be put on hold. So the next date for these
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divorce proceedings, December 2026, and that will ultimately kind of move her towards the freedom that she wants.
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The kids do not visit Brian, but Hannah does come from a very loving, supportive
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family, and she also has the support of [music] Brian's family as well. So, those two kids are going to be all
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right.