Ex-University of Kentucky cheerleader , Laken Snelling, has pleaded not guilty after allegedly k!lling her newborn son by stuffing his body in a trash bag.
Snelling, 21, pleaded not guilty to first-degree manslaughter charges in court Friday after leaving the infant to d!e in a closet after giving birth early Aug. 27, authorities said.
Soon after the baby’s body was discovered, Snelling was charged with abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant, to which she pleaded not guilty.
She was then hit with the manslaughter charges last month, after the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office told a grand jury that the baby was born alive and his cause of death was “asphyxia by undetermined means,” police said.
Snelling was booked into the Fayette County Detention Center, although she was then seen walking the streets just hours later, after her father reportedly 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 college roommates were the first to discover the de@d 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.
