Nov. 1—Brian Mann, the former chiropractor accused of poisoning his wife with lead from his Decatur office, through his attorney on Wednesday claimed Hartselle police mishandled evidence.
“The Hartselle Police Department provided the State with pictures and a sample of the alleged victim’s urine which the police deemed to have lead in it,” reads a motion filed Wednesday by Mann’s attorney, Chad Morgan, aimed at keeping such evidence out of Mann’s jury trial. The trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 18, and Mann has pleaded not guilty.
“Such a procedure to extract the alleged lead from the urine was done in the back parking lot of the Hartselle Police Department using a five-gallon bucket and a strainer,” the motion claims.
Mann, 36, of Hartselle, was arrested in September 2022 after being indicted for the attempted murder of wife Hannah Pettey Mann, with whom he’s currently in divorce proceedings. He was conditionally released from jail after posting a $500,000 bond in January. Since his release, he’s been required to wear a GPS monitor and stay in the Morgan County Jail every weekend.
Mann has been represented by several defense attorneys while awaiting trial, and he retained Morgan in February. Morgan is a former Huntsville police officer with over 24 years of combined law enforcement experience, according to Morgan Law Firm’s website. All of Mann’s attorneys have tried with little success to amend his strict bond conditions.
In Wednesday’s motion, Morgan argued that the lead/urine evidence taken from the alleged victim was unlabeled, lacked a chain of custody and was improperly packaged and processed.
“There has been no known analysis performed on the substance alleged to have been lead by the Department of Forensic Sciences or any other agency,” the motion reads. “No report has been provided to the Defendant or his attorney to date.”
Citing case law, the motion claims evidence related to the analysis of a specimen taken from the human body must include a chain of custody, or, absent a chain of custody, be deemed inadmissible.
The motion argues that all items related to the specimen taken from the alleged victim were unsealed, unlabeled and included descriptive discrepancies.
The motion further argues that the “matter” — i.e. what officials claimed contained lead — should have been processed in a laboratory by trained personnel to avoid environmental contamination.
“Items used to strain the ‘matter’ were a plastic bucket and a paint strainer, neither of which would be acceptable in any laboratory because there is no knowledge of sterility of these items,” the motion reads.
Before Mann was arrested, he visited Decatur Morgan Hospital in 2022 and claimed to be suffering potential poisoning symptoms, according to an affidavit signed by Hartselle police Capt. Alan McDearmond.
“The nurse practitioner said Brian told her he did an X-ray on himself and observed a substance in his gut, which he believed to be lead. The nurse practitioner advised Brian that she needed to repeat the X-ray,” according to the affidavit. “Brian asked why another X-ray was needed and she explained the need to determine if it was chronic or acute ingestion. She said Brian became visibly nervous and she thought he may leave.”
The nurse practitioner reported to McDearmond that the X-ray she then took “showed a substance in his colon that didn’t appear to have been there for long.”
McDearmond said he later subpoenaed Mann’s medical records and “believes the medical records indicate Brian intentionally ingested lead to provide the impression he was also being poisoned.”
The issues in the criminal case against Mann are also prominent in the divorce case in which his wife alleges he intentionally caused her “to unwittingly ingest particles of lead.” Circuit Judge Charles Elliott is presiding over both divorce and criminal cases.
In April, Morgan moved the court for Elliott’s recusal based on allegations from Mann that his wife’s divorce attorney had improperly shared information with Elliott. The divorce attorney, who worked with Elliott for several years in the Morgan County District Attorney’s Office, has denied the allegations.
Elliott declined to recuse himself. In July, Elliott denied Morgan’s motion for a change of venue, which argued that the case had garnered much publicity.
Neither Elliott nor the State had responded to Morgan’s motion to suppress as of Thursday afternoon.
Mann’s case is scheduled for a status conference on Nov. 7 ahead of his jury trial. His divorce is currently scheduled for a bench trial on Dec. 16.
— david.gambino@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438.
