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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
