Kentucky cheerleader accused of hiding newborn’s body in off-campus closet wasn’t home when shocking discovery was made
By Editor,Melissa Koenig
Copyright dailymail
A former University of Kentucky cheerleader accused of hiding her newborn’s body in the closet of her off-campus home was not there when someone found the baby ‘cold to the touch.’
Laken Snelling, 21, was arrested last month after Lexington police made the gruesome discovery and pronounced the baby dead at the scene.
A new incident report obtained by Fox 56 has now revealed that the Lexington Police Department received a call at 10.35am on August 27 by an unidentified individual who somehow came across the baby inside of a closet.
‘Complainant just found a dead body inside a closet,’ the incident report says. ‘It is cold to the touch.’
That suggests that the infant had been dead ‘at least more than a few hours,’ Fox 56 Chief Medical Contributor Dr. Ryan Stanton said.
By the time police, EMTs and fire department officials responded to the home, Snelling was not there, according to the report.
She was found shortly thereafter about five minutes away, and was taken to the police headquarters, where she asked to be ‘checked out’ medically.
An emergency care unit was then dispatched to the police headquarters, and Snelling was placed under arrest at 4.58pm on August 30.
Police have previously said Snelling ‘admitted to giving birth’ and to ‘concealing the birth by cleaning items used inside a black trash bag, including the infant, who was wrapped in a towel.’
‘By wrapping the infant in towels and placing it inside of a black trash bag, the listed suspect treated the corpse in a way that would outrage ordinary family sensibilities,’ the police report said.
But when the former cheerleader appeared in court for the first time last month, she pleaded not guilty to abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant.
Questions still remain in the case, including how the child died – as Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said that a preliminary autopsy on the tragic baby boy inconclusive.
It said it will now conduct ‘extensive microcosmic analyses’ to determine how he died.
It is also unclear whether Snelling, who has since dropped out of school, had told anyone she was pregnant.
But unearthed footage from April shows Snelling performing with UK’s STUNT team with what appears to be a pregnant bump on her stomach.
As previously reported, Snelling also posted images in June where her then-boyfriend, former college basketball star Connor Jordan, 24, held her stomach, which appeared to have a visible bump.
Other images posted on social media in recent months also showed Snelling with what appeared to be a stomach bump.
Those who know the former cheerleader have told the Daily Mail how she was an ‘appearance-obsessed serial bully’ at school.
She is even accused of once trying to run down a fellow student with a Jeep and being so mean that others transferred to different schools to get away from her.
Sydney Kite, who attended high school with Snelling, told us: ‘I don’t know the circumstances of what is alleged to have happened over the baby.
‘However, I do know that Laken had many, many people that she took her personal anger out on. My sister was one of them.
‘While in high school, she tried to run over one of my closest friends with her Jeep. The bullying got so bad my friend had to be pulled out of school and transferred to another because Laken had taken it so far.’
‘Even after my friend left, Laken then kept it up with cyberbullying with text messages,’ Kite continued.
‘There were other individuals who had to transfer to get away from her. And after they did that, she would continue to message them and make TikToks and social media posts about them as well.’
‘If you didn’t have a certain amount of money or a certain amount of popularity, then you weren’t really in Laken’s circle,’ said Kite.
‘She was obsessed with her appearance, very obsessed with being popular and fitting in. She was always obsessed with being very thin, with wearing tight-fitting clothes. She wanted a lot of attention.
‘She would bully my sister and her friends in the bathroom at school. She would just corner them. There were talks with teachers about her behavior, but nothing led to her stopping doing it.
‘I know my mother reported it to the school, and Laken and I had our own interaction. I cornered her in the bathroom and told her to stop messing with my sister while we were in middle school, say eighth grade.
She didn’t like it when people stood up to her, which is why she would go after the kids she saw as weaker. I wasn’t the sort of person to sit there and be bullied.’
Others on social media have backed Kite’s story.
Jennifer Ricker wrote on Facebook: ‘I know this girl… she is a bully! Always treated my kids like trash in school and MANY others.
‘She attempted to run over one of the students and that student left school and moved schools because of HER!
‘She has never been held accountable for anything she does.’
Snelling has been released on a $100,000 bond and is serving home incarceration at her parents’ house in Jefferson City, Tennessee.
She is next scheduled in court on September 26.
Meanwhile, college quarterback Izaiah Hall has since taken a DNA test to determine whether he is the father of the deceased infant.
Hall had dated Snelling before she moved on to former varsity basketball star Connor, the Daily Mail previously revealed.