Former Kentucky Cheerleader Laken Snelling Gets 10 Years in Prison in Newborn Son's Death

LEXINGTON, Kentucky. A judge in Fayette Circuit Court sentenced Laken Snelling to 10 years in prison on Friday, closing the court case over the death of her newborn son, whose body was found in a closet at her home near the University of Kentucky in August 2025.

Snelling, 22, is a former University of Kentucky student and a former member of the school STUNT cheer team. She pleaded guilty on Aug. 21 to first-degree manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant. The Fayette County Circuit Court Clerk's Office confirmed the 10-year sentence after the Oct. 16 hearing, the Louisville Courier Journal reported. People magazine and the New York Post, citing local stations LEX 18, WKYT and WLEX, reported the same sentence.

What she admitted in court

At the August plea hearing, Snelling told the court she had been under heavy emotional stress when the baby came without warning. She said she deprived the baby of oxygen. She told the judge that instead of helping her son, she ended his life, and that she cleaned up afterward and told no one, according to Court TV coverage cited by People.

Prosecutors had recommended a longer term: 10 years for the manslaughter count and one year for each of the other three counts, for a total of 13 years. The judge imposed 10 years. Court records list a status hearing on Nov. 6, the Courier Journal reported.

How the case began

Lexington police were called on Aug. 27, 2025, to a home in the 400 block of Park Avenue, near the university, after a report of an unresponsive infant. Officers found the newborn wrapped in a towel inside a black trash bag in a closet. The baby was pronounced dead at the scene. Snelling's roommates had called police after finding blood in her room and growing worried, according to the arrest affidavit.

The Kentucky medical examiner later determined that the baby had been born alive and that the cause of death was asphyxia by undetermined means, the Lexington Police Department said. In her first account to police, Snelling said the baby fell to the floor at birth and did not appear to be breathing, and that she passed out afterward. She later told medical staff the baby had shown a small movement and a whimper after birth, court documents said.

Snelling was arrested days after the baby was found and withdrew from the University of Kentucky soon after. A Fayette County grand jury indicted her on the added first-degree manslaughter charge on March 10, 2026. She had been free on bond while the case moved toward the August plea.

A case that drew national attention

The case drew coverage across the country for more than a year, in part because Snelling had competed on a university cheer team and in pageants. Friday's sentence ends the criminal case in Fayette Circuit Court, more than a year after the baby was found and about two months after she admitted in court that she caused his death.