University of Kentucky cheerleader Laken Snelling, whose newborn was found dead in trash bag, drops out of school

Laken Snelling, the University of Kentucky cheerleader accused of hiding her dead newborn inside a closet, has dropped out of school following her arrest.

Snelling withdrew from the Lexington-area school and is no longer a member of the STUNT team, spokesperson Jay Blanton told the Lexington Herald Leader on Friday — 3 days after the 21-year-old was ordered to live under her parents’ roof until her next court appearance.

The school, which began classes for the new semester on Aug. 25, didn’t reveal when Snelling unenrolled.

She does not appear on the STUNT team’s 2025 roster, but is listed as a member in 2023 and 2024.

Snelling was arrested after police responded to her off-campus residence in Lexington regarding an unresponsive baby on August 31.

Officers discovered the infant wrapped in a towel and a black trash bag stuffed inside a closet.

The child, later confirmed to be a boy, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Medical examiners didn’t provide a cause of death for the newborn.

Snelling, who once listed being a mom as a life goal, admitted to police to giving birth to the child.

She has pleaded not guilty to the charges of abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant.

The incoming senior was released from jail on a $100,000 bond and then ordered to house arrest at her parents’ home in Tennessee, where she will remain until her next court hearing on September 26.

Snelling reportedly admitted to police she covered up the birth by cleaning all the evidence and tossing the supplies in the same black trash bag as the newborn.

Nearly all abortions have been illegal in the state since 2022.

Snelling was accused by the family of one of her former classmates as being an “appearance-obsessed serial bully” who even tried to run down a fellow student with her Jeep.

“She was obsessed with her appearance, very obsessed with being popular and fitting in,” Sydney Kite told the Daily Mail, accusing Snelling of mercilessly bullying her sister and some of her friends.

“Laken had many, many people that she took her personal anger out on. My sister was one of them,” said Kite.

“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.”

She was most recently dating former college basketballer Conner Jordan, according to loved-up photos they shared online.

It was not immediately clear if Jordan was the father of the baby boy found in the stashed in the closet.

Jordan had been front and center in a handful of posts on the 21-year-old cheerleader’s social media accounts posted in the months before her recent arrest.