A University of Kentucky cheerleader accused of leaving her newborn son for dead may soon find herself behind bars.
Kentucky authorities issued an arrest warrant for 21-year-old Laken Snelling Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported – less than 24 hours after a Fayette County grand jury indicted her on first-degree manslaughter charges for allegedly leaving the newborn to die in her closet last August.
Former University of Kentucky cheerleader Laken Snelling is accused of leaving her newborn son to die in her closet in August 2025. Lexington Police Department Following the incident, Snelling was initially charged with abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant, to which she pleaded not guilty.
She withdrew from the University of Kentucky and its STUNT team, and has since been hiding out at her family’s Tennessee home while on house arrest.
Snelling was indicted by a grand jury in Fayette County for first-degree manslaughter charges. Facebook / Laken Snelling Her latest indictment, however, may land her back in handcuffs.
The jury’s decision came after the medical examiner determined that the baby was born alive and his cause of death was asphyxia by undetermined means, WKYT reported.
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“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.
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.
