Laken Snelling initially faced charges tied to concealment, but medical testing and a grand jury later added first-degree manslaughter.
LEXINGTON, Ky. — When Lexington police first arrested Laken Snelling after her newborn son was found dead in a bedroom closet, the charges dealt with concealment and evidence, not homicide. Six months later, a medical finding that the baby had been born alive altered the case and led a grand jury to add first-degree manslaughter.
That progression culminated Aug. 21 when Snelling, 22, pleaded guilty not only to the original counts of abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant, but also to manslaughter in the child’s death. In doing so, she ended the prospect of a jury trial over a case that had changed substantially as investigators moved from the initial scene to forensic testing and then to a grand-jury review. Snelling is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 16 in Fayette Circuit Court.
The distinction between the first charges and the later indictment is central to understanding the case. Police were called at about 10:30 a.m. Aug. 27, 2025, to a residence in the 400 block of Park Avenue, where Snelling lived while attending the University of Kentucky. Her roommates had located a newborn in her closet after hearing unusual noises from her bedroom earlier that morning. Officers found the infant and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Police identified Snelling as his mother.
An arrest citation gave officers evidence to allege concealment almost immediately. Snelling acknowledged that she had given birth and then cleaned the room, police said. She was accused of placing materials used in the cleanup and the infant, who was wrapped in a towel, inside a black trash bag. Those facts supported the three charges filed after her arrest. But they did not by themselves answer the question required for a homicide case: whether the child was born alive and whether criminal conduct caused his death.
That uncertainty remained visible in the public record during the first months of the case. The Fayette County Coroner’s Office and medical examiner needed additional testing. Prosecutors did not immediately take a homicide allegation to the grand jury. The absence of an early manslaughter or murder charge did not establish that the baby was stillborn, nor did the discovery of the body establish that Snelling had caused his death. Investigators were still developing evidence capable of separating those possibilities.
Meanwhile, court records provided competing pieces of Snelling’s own account. She told investigators she delivered the baby alone in her bedroom and later passed out on top of him, according to records reported by local and national news organizations. She said she awoke and saw the child changing color and believed he had died. Investigators also obtained information indicating she had described signs of life after delivery to medical personnel, including movement and a small sound from the baby. Those accounts added to the importance of the medical examiner’s work.
In March, Lexington police announced the result: the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the infant was born alive and died of asphyxia by undetermined means. The conclusion resolved one critical factual question while leaving another more limited one unresolved. It established a live birth and identified asphyxia as the cause of death, but the phrase “by undetermined means” did not state precisely how the oxygen deprivation occurred. Prosecutors nevertheless now had a medical determination that supported presenting a homicide charge to grand jurors.
On March 10, the Fayette County grand jury returned an indictment charging Snelling with first-degree manslaughter along with the three original offenses. The indictment did more than add another count. It set out the grand jury’s legal theory that Snelling caused the infant’s death under circumstances treated as manslaughter rather than murder. The document referred to “extreme emotional disturbance,” a term with a specific role in Kentucky homicide law. That phrasing is a legal classification and should not be confused with a psychiatric diagnosis.
Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Kimberly Baird said at the time that Kentucky law did not require a psychiatric evaluation to invoke the legal concept described in the indictment, and the document did not say Snelling had received one. Reports on the indictment said grand jurors considered the homicide evidence and chose first-degree manslaughter. Grand-jury proceedings themselves are secret, meaning the full testimony and deliberations that led to the charge were not publicly available.
The case then entered the more familiar stages of a felony prosecution. Snelling appeared in court in April and pleaded not guilty. She had previously been released from custody under conditions that included living with family in Tennessee. She was no longer enrolled at the University of Kentucky, where she had been a member of the school’s STUNT team. Public attention often emphasized her former student-athlete status, but the indictment turned on evidence concerning the infant’s birth, death and Snelling’s conduct afterward.
Had the case gone to trial, the prosecution and defense would have confronted the gap between a medical cause of death and an undetermined precise means, along with Snelling’s earlier descriptions of what happened after delivery. Prosecutors would have had to prove the charged homicide beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense would have had the opportunity to challenge the state’s evidence, cross-examine witnesses and present its own evidence. None of those trial-stage determinations ultimately became necessary because Snelling changed her plea.
The turning point came during an Aug. 21 hearing that had been scheduled as a status conference. Before Circuit Judge Diane Minnifield, Snelling pleaded guilty to all four counts. The judge did not simply accept a one-word admission. She asked Snelling to explain conduct supporting the charges. Snelling said she had been under emotional stress when the baby arrived unexpectedly and acknowledged that she caused his death rather than helping him. Asked more specifically about the manslaughter count, she said she deprived the child of oxygen.
That statement was legally important because it supplied a factual basis for the plea from Snelling herself. The state no longer needed a jury to choose among competing interpretations of her earlier account of passing out, the medical examiner’s finding or the other evidence gathered during the investigation. Snelling also acknowledged conduct tied to the remaining charges, including placing towels in a plastic bag and failing to tell anyone about the birth. Minnifield accepted the guilty pleas.
Prosecutors recommended that Snelling receive 10 years for first-degree manslaughter. They separately recommended one year for abuse of a corpse, one year for tampering with physical evidence and 12 months for concealing the birth. Those figures are recommendations within the plea process, not a sentence already imposed. WKYT reported that the judge retains authority over the sentence and that Snelling may withdraw her plea if Minnifield decides to go beyond the Commonwealth’s recommendation.
Baird later described the agreement in practical terms, noting that trials carry uncertainty for both sides. A jury would have been asked to decide criminal responsibility after hearing the forensic findings, witness accounts and Snelling’s statements. Plea negotiations removed that uncertainty by securing convictions on all four charges while giving the defense a known prosecution recommendation to present at sentencing. The judge, rather than a jury, now controls the unresolved question of punishment.
The legal transformation of the case can be traced through three official stages. The first was the Aug. 27 discovery and the evidence of concealment, which led to the initial arrest. The second was the medical examiner’s finding that the child was born alive and died of asphyxia, which preceded the manslaughter indictment. The third was Snelling’s own admission in court that she deprived the baby of oxygen, eliminating the need for prosecutors to prove that allegation at a trial.
The case also illustrates why early criminal charges can change as an investigation develops. Initial charges reflect evidence available at that time; later forensic results may support additional allegations, while grand jurors decide whether there is probable cause for felony charges to proceed. A conviction requires a later step, either a guilty verdict or, as here, a defendant’s guilty plea accepted by a judge. Snelling’s case moved through each of those stages over roughly a year.
The remaining proceeding is sentencing. Minnifield is expected to hear the matter Oct. 16, when the prosecution’s proposed terms, the plea agreement and any information properly presented to the court can be considered. Until the judge imposes sentence, the duration of Snelling’s incarceration has not been finally determined.
Author note: Last updated September 29, 2026.