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Former University of Kentucky cheerleader Laken Snelling continues to assert her innocence following accusations of killing her newborn son, placing his body in a trash bag, and subsequently ordering McDonald’s.
Snelling, aged 21, entered a plea of not guilty to first-degree manslaughter during a court appearance on Friday. Authorities allege that she abandoned the newborn in a closet shortly after giving birth on August 27.
Following the grim discovery of the infant’s body, Snelling faced charges of abusing a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth. She denied all charges.
Last month, she faced manslaughter charges after the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office informed a grand jury that the baby had been born alive and died from “asphyxia by undetermined means,” according to police reports.
Although Snelling was initially held at the Fayette County Detention Center, she was reportedly released just hours later after her father posted her $10,000 bond.
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.
Snelling’s horrified college roommates were the first to discover the dead baby boy in a black plastic bag stuffed in her closet at their shared off-campus home in Lexington.
In her room, they also found a “blood-soaked towel on the floor and a plastic bag containing evidence of childbirth” – as well as the infant, who was “cold to the touch,” they told a 911 operator.
The roommates – who had suspected the cheerleader was concealing a pregnancy – told cops they’d heard loud, strange noises coming from Snelling’s room around the time she gave birth at roughly 4 a.m.
Snelling then allegedly tried to clean up the scene, showered and left the house – skipping morning classes and a visit to the school clinic – and went to McDonald’s.
Snelling initially claimed during an interview with police that the baby fell on the floor after she gave birth but that she didn’t think he was “breathing or alive.”
She soon changed her story, saying she had passed out “on top of the baby” and woke up to find him “turning blue and purple.”
An investigation revealed she told medical staff that the newborn had shown “a little bit of fetal movement” and made a “whimper” after he was born.
A pretrial conference in Snelling’s case is scheduled for May 14, and a status hearing is set for June 12.
Her lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.