Resurfaced videos from a national championship show Laken Snelling performing with her STUNT team just months before her arrest.
The 21-year-old athlete is currently at the center of a chilling investigation over the remains of her deceased infant, found stuffed inside a closet.
Her ex-boyfriend Izaiah Hall also provided cops with his DNA sample as part of the ongoing investigation.
Highlights
- Resurfaced videos from a national championship show Laken Snelling performing with her STUNT team months before her arrest.
- The 21-year-old athlete is currently at the center of a chilling investigation over the remains of her deceased infant, found stuffed inside a closet.
- Her ex-boyfriend Izaiah Hall also provided cops with his DNA sample as part of the ongoing investigation.
Videos from a national championship show Laken Snelling performing with her STUNT team months before her arrest
Image credits: laken_snelling/TikTok
Trigger warning: this article contains graphic details that may be distressing to some.
Videos shared on social media earlier this year captured Laken, a University of Kentucky competitive cheerleader, competing at the 2025 STUNT National Championship on April 25.
One clip on the FloCheer YouTube page saw the 21-year-old performing with her team against California Baptist University in the national championship, hosted by Nashville’s Lipscomb University.
Image credits: College of Communication and Information at UK
Laken was seen being hoisted up by one of her teammates and even encouraging another teammate in another shot.
Her team lost against California Baptist University, which bagged their fifth straight national title in STUNT.
Netizens claimed she looked pregnant at the time, with one commenting, “That’s a baby belly, not a doubt in my mind.”
“So everyone knew she was pregnant?” one asked.
Another wrote, “That scares me that she was even doing that while pregnant. Omg.”
The 21-year-old dropped out of university in the wake of her arrest over her deceased son being found in a closet
Image credits: WHAS11
Prior to her arrest, Laken had been on her university’s STUNT team for three seasons.
However, she is no longer a student at University of Kentucky or a member of the STUNT team.
The university senior was reportedly pursuing a degree in Interdisciplinary Disability Studies. But she dropped out of school in light of being charged with concealing the birth of an infant, tampering with physical evidence and ab*se of a corpse.
Image credits: UK Athletics
Laken was arrested on August 31 after an infant’s remains were found in a closet at an off-campus location on Park Avenue in Lexington.
Police searched the closet and found the lifeless infant wrapped in a towel and placed in a black trash bag.
The accused mother's baby was found wrapped in a towel and placed in a black trash bag
Image credits: Fayette County Detention Center
When cops questioned her, Laken admitted to giving birth to the baby and cleaning up the evidence.
“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,” read a police report about the arrest.
Image credits: UK Athletics
Image credits: FedUpFed2018
The results of a preliminary autopsy confirmed that Laken had given birth to a baby boy; however, the infant’s cause of passing still remains inconclusive.
Meanwhile, Laken’s former beau, Izaiah Hall, 21, provided his DNA sample to determine whether it matches the infant found in the trash bag inside the closet.
Laken's ex-boyfriend Izaiah Hall provided his DNA sample to determine whether it matches the deceased infant
Image credits: FloCheer
“Lexington police had him come down to the station to give a sample,” Izaiah’s father, Justin Smith, 45, told the New York Post.
“I don’t know anything on this and we don’t know if Izaiah is the father or not,” he added.
Image credits: 901Lulu
It is believed Izaiah, a quarterback at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, dated Laken before she started dating former college basketballer Conner Jordan.
Laken’s last few posts on social media captured her with Conner posing for photos together.
However, his TikTok account appeared to be deleted following the university senior’s arrest.
The accused cheerleader was dating former college basketballer Conner Jordan after her relationship with Izaiah ended
Image credits: FloCheer
Image credits: Oh_Katie_Babie
The accused cheerleader pleaded not guilty in a Lexington, Kentucky, courtroom on September 2.
She mostly kept her head down in court and held the hand of her dad, Terry Snelling, who works as a construction company supervisor.
Laken posted a $100,000 bond and is “to live with parents” in their Jefferson, Tennessee home, according to court documents..
She is now on “home incarceration with no ankle monitor,” the documents added.
Image credits: UK Athletics
Image credits: amandarp2
Sydney Kite, who knew Laken from high school, called her an “appearance-obsessed serial bully” who “took her personal anger out” on others.
“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,” Sydney told the Daily Mail.
A former fellow high schooler alleged that Laken was an “appearance-obsessed serial bully”
Image credits: FloCheer
Laken was reportedly a pageant queen and competed in the Jefferson County Fairest of the Fair in the past.
“She was obsessed with her appearance, very obsessed with being popular and fitting in,” Sydney said. “She was always obsessed with being very thin, with wearing tight-fitting clothes. She wanted a lot of attention.”
“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,” she added.
“She will most likely be chastised forever and her life is ruined,” one commented online
