Former University of Kentucky cheerleader Laken Snelling has been indicted on first-degree manslaughter after her newborn son was found dead in her closet in August.
Snelling, 21, was charged by a Fayette County grand jury on Tuesday after the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office determined the baby was born alive and that his cause of death was asphyxia by undetermined means, WKYT reported.
“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,” Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Kimberly Baird told the outlet.
Snelling was originally charged with abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant.
She pleaded not guilty to those charges and has been on house arrest at her family home in Tennessee.
Following her arrest, Snelling withdrew from the University of Kentucky and is no longer a member of the STUNT team.
She faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the first-degree manslaughter charge, and an additional 11 years for the remaining charges if found guilty.
The 21-year-old gave birth to a baby boy at about 4 a.m. on Aug. 27 in her off-campus house in Lexington.
Her roommates — who suspected Snelling was concealing a pregnancy — told police they heard loud, strange noises coming from her room throughout the early morning.
After the birth, she allegedly cleaned up blood from the scene, showered and left her home — skipping morning classes and a visit to the school clinic — to go to McDonald’s.
While she was gone, her roommates entered the room and found a “blood-soaked towel on the floor and a plastic bag containing evidence of childbirth.”
They discovered the newborn inside a black plastic bag in a closet and called 911, telling the operator the infant was “cold to the touch.”
When Snelling returned home, she found cops already waiting for her and was arrested.
Snelling initially told cops the baby fell on the floor after she gave birth, but she didn’t think he was “breathing or alive.”
The cheerleader then claimed to have passed out “on top of the baby” and woke up to find “the baby turning blue and purple.”
Snelling admitted she wrapped “the baby up like a burrito and laid next to it” because it “gave her a little comfort in the moment,” the court documents said.
However, an investigation later revealed she told medical staff that the newborn had shown “a little bit of fetal movement” and made a “whimper” after he was born.
She allegedly took several photos while she was in labor, too, but deleted them “in an attempt to hide the birth,” police said.
Investigators believe other images may have been successfully destroyed before her arrest.