A Fayette County grand jury on Tuesday indicted Laken Snelling, a 22-year-old former University of Kentucky cheerleader, on a charge of first-degree manslaughter after her newborn son was found dead in a closet at her off-campus apartment. The indictment followed a report by the Kentucky Medical Examiner's Office that found the baby was born alive in August 2025 and that the cause of death was asphyxia, meaning the infant died from a lack of oxygen.
If convicted on the manslaughter charge alone, Snelling faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. She faces an additional 11 years for the three earlier charges still pending against her: abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant. She pleaded not guilty to those initial charges.
For months, the legal question in this case turned on one fact: was Snelling's baby born alive? The Kentucky Medical Examiner's Office answered that question. Its report concluded the baby was born alive and died of asphyxia. That finding opened the door to a manslaughter charge that the original set of charges did not include.
According to the Daily Mail, Fayette Commonwealth's Attorney Kimberly Baird confirmed the medical examiner's report was "key to securing the grand jury indictment." She described how the grand jury reached its decision.
They were given the information about homicide, the four levels of homicide and then deliberated and decided that manslaughter first degree was the charge that should come out of the grand jury.
In plain terms, the grand jury, meaning a panel of citizens empowered to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to bring formal charges, weighed the medical evidence and chose manslaughter in the first degree over the other three levels of homicide presented to them.
Snelling was first charged on August 30, 2025, three days after she gave birth to a baby boy in her off-campus bedroom. Her roommates told police they believed she had been concealing a pregnancy for some time and that they heard strange noises coming from her room when she gave birth.
Snelling then allegedly cleaned up the scene and left the apartment to go to McDonald's. When she was gone, her roommates discovered the newborn dead on the floor of her closet, wrapped in a blood-soaked towel inside a plastic bag. One roommate reported to police that the infant was "cold to the touch."
Snelling was arrested when she returned to the apartment. In her first police interview, she claimed the newborn was already dead when she gave birth. She initially said she did not believe the baby was "breathing or alive." She then claimed to have passed out "on top of the baby," and said she woke to find the infant "turning blue and purple," as the New York Post reported.
Court documents paint a different picture from a clean denial. According to those filings, Snelling told investigators she wrapped her newborn up "like a burrito" and "laid next to it," explaining that she was panicking and it "gave her a little comfort in the moment."
Police later alleged that Snelling told a medical worker the newborn had shown "a little bit of fetal movement" and made a "whimper" when he was born. If accurate, that account directly contradicts her initial claim that the baby was born dead.
Officers executed a search warrant on Snelling's phone and requested access to her Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and a shared iCloud account with her mother. The investigation revealed a series of internet searches on topics related to pregnancy and concealed or hidden pregnancy. Authorities also found images of Snelling during labor on her phone, which she allegedly deleted in an attempt to hide the birth.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether anyone in Snelling's life knew she was pregnant. But the physical evidence suggests she went to considerable lengths to keep it hidden. Footage from April showed Snelling performing with the University of Kentucky's STUNT team with what appeared to be a pregnancy bump. In June, she posted images with her then-boyfriend, former college basketball player Connor Jordan, in which she appeared to cover her stomach.
Snelling was also previously in a relationship with college quarterback Izaiah Hall, who underwent a DNA test to determine whether the baby was his. No public results of that test have been released.
Snelling has been on house arrest at her family home in Tennessee since October. Following her arrest, she withdrew from the University of Kentucky and left the school's cheerleading team. She now faces four charges in total: first-degree manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant.
Baird said Snelling is due back in court within the next three weeks but did not provide a specific date. At that appearance, investigators will need to determine how the prosecution intends to proceed with the full slate of charges and whether additional evidence from the phone warrant or social media records will be introduced.
The shift in Snelling's own accounts, from claiming the baby was born dead to acknowledging fetal movement and sounds, will be central to whatever comes next. A newborn boy was born alive in a college apartment, placed in a closet wrapped in a trash bag, and left there while his mother allegedly went to get fast food. The grand jury looked at those facts and called it manslaughter. Now a Fayette County courtroom will decide whether the evidence holds.
