DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) — The trial of Brian Mann, the Decatur chiropractor accused of attempting to poison his wife, began Monday.
Mann has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder.
30 potential jurors were questioned, and attorneys narrowed the pool to 12 and two alternates. The alternate jurors will not be identified until the jury is ready to deliberate.
Mann and his wife were in the middle of a divorce when he “intentionally caused her to unwittingly ingest particles of lead,” according to court documents. Court records said Mann’s wife spent two months in the hospital because of the lead poisoning.
Mann was arrested after police received a tip saying he had lead leftover from the construction of an X-ray room at his chiropractic office. Police collected a sample of the lead from the X-ray room.
“We’re just starting up,” said Chad Morgan, the attorney representing Mann. “This is kind of what we expected. You’ve got to get the jury set. You’ve got to get everything going and moving. You don’t really know how long things are going to go. It really depends on witnesses. Right now, we have confidence in what we have. We wouldn’t have called it for trial if we didn’t.”
Before the jurors were questioned, Morgan raised concerns about how some of the evidence was collected in the case. Current Hartselle Police Chief Alan McDearmond, who was an investigator in this case, took a sample from the victim while hospital staff worked to flush her system of lead.
The question of whether the evidence will be allowed will be addressed later.
The trial is set to resume at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday with opening statements.
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