Police charge Kentucky college student after finding 'deceased infant' in closet

UPDATE, 9/4/25: After conducting a preliminary autopsy, Coroner Gary Ginn stated that the baby left in a trash bag was a boy, but that his cause of death remains inconclusive for the moment.

According to WKYT, Ginn stated in his report, “I understand the community’s concern and sensitivity surrounding the death of a child. [W]e are conducting a thorough and methodical death investigation to ensure all facts are carefully considered.”

NBC News added that a statement from the coroner's office noted, "Extensive microscopic analyses are essential to determine the cause and manner of death."

9/3/25: A student at the University of Kentucky has been charged after authorities found the body of a "deceased infant" wrapped in a towel inside a garbage bag and placed in a closet.

Key Takeaways:

• Laken Snelling has been charged with "abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant."

• Snelling stands accused of giving birth and trying to conceal evidence before her dead baby was found in a closet.

• The coroner is still investigating the child's cause of death.

• The city of Lexington, where the incident occurred, has a Safe Haven Baby Box where parents unable to care for their babies can legally surrender them.

The Details:

On August 27, police in Lexington, Kentucky, were called for a report of an unresponsive infant at a residence near the University of Kentucky campus. When officers arrived, they found the deceased baby  “wrapped in a towel inside a black trash bag.”

On August 31, authorities arrested Laken Snelling, a 21-year-old student cheerleader, in connection with the infant's death. According to a police statement, Snelling is the baby's mother. WSMV reports that she admitted to giving birth and then cleaning up the evidence of her delivery.

She has been charged with abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant. The post-arrest complaint, shown in a video from Lex 18, states:

Officers were dispatched to listed suspect's address regarding a deceased infant being located inside of a closet. Infant was located wrapped in a towel inside of a black trash bag. The listed offender was mirandized and interviewed and admitted to giving birth. Furthermore, the listed suspect admitted to concealing the birth by cleaning any evidence, placing all cleaning items used inside of a black trash bag including the infant who was wrapped in a towel. In the process of cleaning the evidence of the birth, the listed suspect tampered with said evidence that proved she had given birth. 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 cause of the infant's death is being investigated by the Fayette County Coroner’s Office.

A report from US Magazine states that "Snelling posted a $100,000 bond on Tuesday, September 2, and is now living on 'home incarceration with no ankle monitor.'"

21-year-old UK student charged in connection to infant's death, police report

According to The Guardian, "It is legal in most states, including Kentucky, to self-manage your own abortion."

State law makes no mention of prosecution of any woman for self-managed abortion. FindLaw notes, "Kentucky law punishes the abortion provider, not the woman who seeks or gets an abortion." The law defines abortion as "performance of any act with the intent to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with knowledge that the termination by those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the unborn child by... [a]dministering, prescribing, or providing any abortion-inducing drug... or [u]sing an instrument or external force on a pregnant female."

Learn more about the abortion pill in the video below:

1st Trimester Abortion | The Abortion Pill | What Is Abortion?

Commentary

As Live Action News has previously noted, there is the potential for stories of dead, abandoned infants to increase, given the rampant availability of the abortion pill. Shockingly, despite the increase, abortion proponents have even gone so far as to suggest that authorities should ignore reports of dead babies, because, after all, the child could have passed away as a result of a natural miscarriage/stillbirth.

Pro-abortion influencer Jessica Valenti is upset that the term "infant" was used in regard to this situation, because calling it an "infant" might begin to lead the culture to believe that humans are humans both inside and outside the womb — and that 'fetuses' are 'persons.' Valenti wrote:

Reporters need to be a whole lot more skeptical, and to understand that in post-Dobbs America, even using words like ‘babies’ and ‘infants’ means something. Conservatives are already codifying fetal personhood in policy—we don’t need mainstream media outlets helping them do the same in culture.

This type of reporting seems to now have made its way into the mainstream media. In reporting on Snelling's arrest, The Guardian added the following:

Since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, multiple women have faced criminal charges after suffering miscarriages, sparking fears among experts and women that pregnancy losses may now be treated like crime scenes.

It was not clear on Tuesday if Snelling gave birth, suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth, or underwent a self-managed abortion....

It certainly appears that the desire is for police and media to look the other way when a deceased child is found hidden in a closet and to assume that nothing potentially illegal has occurred.

While Valenti and The Guardian may wish to paint every instance of fetal death as a mere "pregnancy loss," this term implies accidental death; given the availability of the no-test abortion pill, some women experiencing second- or third-trimester "pregnancy loss" may very well have ended those pregnancies — and the lives of their children — intentionally.

Indeed, authorities have not yet indicated if Snelling may have suffered a miscarriage or a stillbirth, and as of now, she has not been charged with the child's death. Abuse of a corpse, however — in this case, reportedly putting the child's body into a trash bag and hiding it in a closet — is against Kentucky law, which defines it as "intentionally treat[ing] a corpse in a way that would outrage ordinary family sensibilities."

However, Valenti likely doesn't need to be overly concerned about the pro-abortion mainstream media's use of language. After all, they can't even seem to admit that human beings who are conceived, frozen, and later birthed as a result of IVF did not "come from" embryos but are those same embryos, who simply continued their process of human development and are now outside the womb.

Humanizing "fetuses" and "embryos," after all, is a threat to pro-abortion ideology.

Zoom Out:

Any parent who feels unprepared to care for an infant can safely and legally surrender a baby under Kentucky's safe haven law, which allows parents to leave babies younger than 30 days old at a designated safe haven location. The city of Lexington also has a Safe Haven Baby Box, which makes the process simpler by giving a parent an approved way of anonymous surrender.