Court decision made in Kentucky cheerleader case after newborn was found dead in trash bag

A court decision has been made in the case of former University of Kentucky cheerleader Laken Snelling, after her newborn son was found dead inside her closet.

The case dates back to August 2025, when investigators say they found a baby boy wrapped in a blood-soaked towel and placed inside a trash bag at her dorm at the University of Kentucky.

The discovery led to Snelling’s arrest and a series of initial charges.

Snelling was first charged with abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant, to which she pleaded not guilty in September.

Months later, in March 2026, prosecutors escalated the case by indicting her on first-degree manslaughter charges.

They have claimed that she suffocated the newborn in a panic after secretly giving birth.

During her latest court appearance on Friday (April 10), Snelling once again pleaded not guilty to the additional charge.

The legal proceedings are now moving forward, with a pretrial hearing scheduled for May 14 and a status hearing set for June 12.

Roommates Alerted Police After Discovering Blood In the Bedroom

The former cheerleader's roommates, who’d suspected she was hiding being pregnant, told police they’d heard unusual noises coming from her room throughout the early hours of the morning.

They claimed that Snelling had cleaned up the blood after giving birth, showered, and left the house to go to McDonald’s, skipping her morning classes and a visit to the school clinic.

While she was gone, her roommates entered her bedroom and discovered the newborn baby inside a black plastic trash bag in a closet. They then called 911 and told the operator that the baby was "cold to the touch".

Police were waiting for Snelling when she returned home, and she initially told them that the baby fell on the floor after she gave birth and didn’t think he was "breathing or alive." She also claimed that she passed out on top of the baby and woke up to find "the baby turning blue and purple."

In addition to this, court documents state that Snelling had wrapped the baby up "like a burrito and laid next to it" because it "gave her a little comfort in the moment," per Court TV.

However, an investigation later revealed that she had told medical staff that the newborn had made a "whimper" after he was born and showed "a little bit of fetal movement," Kentucky Kernel reported.

She also allegedly took several photos while in labor but had deleted them "in an attempt to hide the birth," police said, and investigators believe other images might have been successfully destroyed before she was arrested.

Featured image credit: Fayette County Detention Center