Ex-Kentucky Cheerleader Gets 10 Years for Newborn’s Death
The 22-year-old former UK cheerleader admitted to suffocating her infant and hiding digital evidence of her pregnancy before roommates alerted police.
A former University of Kentucky cheerleader will spend a decade in prison after admitting she suffocated her newborn son and concealed his body inside a closet at her off-campus residence.
Fayette County Circuit Court Judge Diane Minnifield sentenced Laken Snelling, 22, on Friday following her August guilty plea to first-degree manslaughter. The sentence also resolves three additional felony counts — abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant — all of which Snelling accepted responsibility for during the same proceeding.
The case originated Aug. 31, 2025, when Lexington Police Department officers responded to Snelling’s apartment after roommates reported hearing loud noises coming from a closet. Inside, investigators found the newborn wrapped in a trash bag. The child was cold to the touch.
An autopsy by the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office determined the infant was born alive and died from asphyxiation. During her court appearance, Snelling acknowledged the mechanism directly, telling the judge, “I deprived him of oxygen.”
Court documents outline a timeline that began with Snelling giving birth alone. She told investigators she remained awake for roughly 30 minutes before losing consciousness on top of the baby. When she regained awareness, she observed the infant “turning blue and purple.” Rather than contacting emergency services, she placed the child in a trash bag, stored the bag in the closet and cleaned the scene.
Digital forensics revealed further efforts to obscure the event. Investigators recovered evidence that Snelling deleted photographs documenting her labor and erased other records related to her pregnancy from her phone.
“I was under a lot of emotional stress and my baby came unexpectedly,” Snelling said in court. “And instead of helping him, I ended his life and afterward I cleaned up and didn’t tell anyone.”
Neonaticide — the killing of a newborn within the first 24 hours of life — is legally distinct from infanticide and typically involves perpetrators who have concealed their pregnancies entirely. Criminological research consistently links these cases to severe psychological denial rather than premeditated malice, often involving young women who lack access to or awareness of prenatal care. Mental health professionals note that the panic response triggered by an unexpected, unassisted delivery frequently overrides rational decision-making, though courts treat the resulting death as a homicide regardless of the perpetrator’s psychological state.
Kentucky, like most U.S. states, operates Safe Haven laws designed specifically to prevent neonaticide. Under the state’s legislation, a parent can surrender a newborn up to 30 days old at any hospital emergency department, fire station or police facility without facing criminal prosecution for abandonment. Public health advocates have long pushed for broader awareness of these statutes on college campuses, where students may be geographically separated from family support networks and unaware of confidential medical resources available to them off campus.
Snelling was a senior at the university and a member of the cheerleading squad at the time of her arrest. A grand jury returned the indictment against her in March, five months before she entered her pleas.
She remains held at the Fayette County Detention Center as she begins serving her 10-year sentence.
