Sneak peek: The Gaslighting of Hannah Pettey | Forensic Files

[music] >> When 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 to dwell on it, you know. Have you
thought about what you'll tell your children in the future? I want to be honest with them because they
do have a right to know the truth. I started first feeling like I was getting sick of August 2021 and 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, "Do you
need to go to a doctor? What What do you want to do?" And she says, "No, I'm okay. It'll go away." And most of the
time it it did. [music] I mean, I had lost so much weight. Things finally got to the point where I
said, "Hey, you're you're losing a lot of weight." That's when I started getting concerned.
Why did you take her to see the nurse practitioner, Carey Griffith? When she 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.
I 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? 10 hours. >> [music] >> 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?" It'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. Mhm. It's just a shaving of the lead. 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. [music] 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. One of the other doctors I spoke to said, "You have to leave because she is now under a protective order."
I remember them saying, "Either he's done it, she's done it, or you've done it. But someone [music] is intentionally
trying to kill your daughter."

ALL NEW: When a young woman nearly dies from poisoning, investigators focus on the two people she trusted the most. "48 Hours" correspondent Anne-Marie Green reports Saturday, Jan. 10 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

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Brief Summary

A mother recounts her daughter's near-fatal lead poisoning and the ensuing medical crisis.

Key points

A Mother's Desperation. A mother pleads for answers as her daughter’s health deteriorates.
The Diagnosis. After a harrowing journey, the shocking truth emerges: lead poisoning.
Accusations Fly. In the midst of chaos, suspicions arise about who is to blame.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Promise me, whatever this is, you'll find it.

A mother’s plea in desperation.

1:19WatchJan 8, 2026

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