A former University of Kentucky cheerleader who suffocated her newborn son and stuffed his body in a closet trash bag was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday — a term that shows exactly how cheaply the system values a life that never had a chance to fight back.
Laken Snelling, 22, pleaded guilty in Fayette Circuit Court to first-degree manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant. Prosecutors recommended 10 years for manslaughter and one year each for the remaining charges. She will be eligible for parole after serving 85% of her sentence. Ten years — that is what a baby's life is worth in a culture that has spent decades teaching young women that the unborn are disposable and the born are an inconvenience.
The baby was McCoy Cade Hall. He was born alive. Court documents show the newborn showed "a little bit of fetal movement" and made a "whimper" after birth, according to the New York Post. Then his mother deprived him of oxygen until he died.
"I was under a lot of emotional stress and my baby came unexpectedly," Snelling told the court at her August plea hearing. "And instead of helping him, I ended his life. And afterwards I cleaned up and didn't tell anyone."
She cleaned up. She hid the body. She deleted photos she took while in labor "in an attempt to hide the birth," police said. She initially lied to officers, claiming the baby fell to the floor and wasn't breathing. Then she changed her story, saying she passed out "on top of the baby" and woke to find him "turning blue and purple." The Kentucky Medical Examiner's Office ruled the death asphyxia by undetermined means.
Snelling's roommates called 911 on August 27, 2025, after finding a "blood-soaked towel on the floor and a plastic bag containing evidence of childbirth" in their off-campus Lexington home. They had suspected she was hiding a pregnancy. What they found was a dead baby boy wrapped in a towel inside a black plastic bag, shoved in a closet.
Before sentencing, the baby's family told the court what had been stolen. "As a grandparent, you imagine the memories you'll make with your grandchildren," one relative said. "You look forward to watching them grow and seeing the person they become. For Cade, those possibilities were taken away before he ever had the chance to experience them."
Snelling withdrew from the university after her arrest. She had been a member of the school's competitive cheer STUNT team.
Both outlets covered the facts straight. But neither asked the question that matters: what does it mean that a young woman — educated, athletically accomplished, surrounded by roommates who suspected her pregnancy — concluded that killing her child and stuffing him in a bag was more manageable than giving him a chance to live? Snelling didn't lack resources. She lacked the moral conviction that her son's life had value. And a decade in prison — parole-eligible in eight and a half years — confirms the court's agreement that it didn't have much.
