NEW details are coming to light about the shocking reason the housemates of a cheerleader who left her baby for dead called the police.
Laken Snelling, 21, was arrested after a dead newborn baby was discovered thrown in a trash bag in her closet.
Laken Snelling was arrested for allegedly leaving her newborn in a trash bag in her closet[/caption]
Snelling is a cheerleader at the University of Kentucky[/caption]
She had a preliminary hearing on September 26[/caption]
The University of Kentucky cheerleader allegedly gave birth to the living newborn days before the baby was found dead.
Officers arrested Snelling on August 31 after her roommates had called the police on her.
Days before her arrest, Snelling allegedly gave birth to a baby boy in her room around 4 am on August 27, according to police.
Snelling allegedly told the University of Kentucky Labor and Delivery Unit that the baby had shown “a little bit of fetal movement,” and she “guessed” he was alive at birth.
The mother said she passed out after giving birth and fell asleep on top of her newborn child, according to an affidavit.
After waking up, Snelling allegedly said that she believed the baby had died.
Once she saw the baby boy “turning blue and purple,” she wrapped her son up “like a burrito and laid it on the floor next to her because it gave her a little comfort in the moment,” according to CBS affiliate WKYT.
The mother fell asleep again and woke up a few hours later to dispose of the baby and the placenta.
Snelling allegedly wrapped the baby in a towel and threw her placenta in a trash bag, which she put in her closet.
Her roommates grew suspicious of the cheerleader and they questioned her about loud noises they heard coming from her room.
Snelling told them that she passed out and fell, then said she was going to the doctor because she wasn’t “feeling well,” according to the affidavit.
Rather than going to the doctor, Snelling ditched her morning class and got food at McDonald’s.
The cheerleader’s actions made her housemates suspicious of her, leading them to make a grim discovery in her closet.
In her closet, the roommates found a “blood-soaked towel on the floor and a plastic bag containing evidence of childbirth,” prosecutors claim.
Timeline of Laken Snelling’s case
Laken Snelling, 21, faces charges of abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant after her baby boy was found dead in a closet in Lexington, Kentucky.
Snelling has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Here is a timeline of the case:
- August 25 – First day of fall classes at University of Kentucky, where Snelling was enrolled as a senior.
- August 27 – Police are dispatched to a home in Lexington, Kentucky, to reports of an unresponsive baby. A baby later identified as Snelling’s son is found dead in a closet at the home.
- August 31 – Snelling is arrested and booked in the Fayette County Detention Center.
- September 1 – She is released on $100,000 bond and is put on house arrest at her parents’ home in Tennessee.
- September 2 – Snelling pleads not guilty to the three charges.
- September 26 – At her preliminary hearing, Snelling appeared at the Fayette County District Courthouse and waived the matter to the Fayette County grand jury.
Reports claim that the baby was “cold to the touch,” leading an anonymous source to call the police on the 21-year-old.
Snelling was arrested once she returned home and charged with abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant.
Once she was arrested, investigators made unsettling discoveries after searching her phone data and browsing history.
Police say the young mother has searched “different things pertaining to pregnancy, images of her during labor, photos of her doing things an ordinary pregnant woman should not be doing and a concealed or hidden pregnancy.”
“Other items could have also been deleted in an attempt to hide any evidence of the pregnancy, birth and newborn baby,” Lexington police stated.
Snelling is now out on bond and under house arrest at her home in Tennessee.
