{"id":54618,"date":"2026-03-12T13:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=54618"},"modified":"2026-03-12T22:51:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:51:35","slug":"former-kentucky-student-athlete-indicted-on-manslaughter-charge-in-babys-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=54618","title":{"rendered":"Former Kentucky student-athlete indicted on manslaughter charge in baby&#8217;s death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A former University of Kentucky student-athlete has been indicted on a first-degree manslaughter charge in connection with the death of her newborn, whose body was found inside a trash bag in a closet last year, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Snelling, 22, was indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday on several charges related to the August 2025 incident, including first-degree manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant, according to the Lexington Police Department. She was taken into custody at the Fayette County Detention Center on Thursday before she was released on a $10,000 bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The former member of the university\u2019s STUNT team was previously arrested on the same charges, except the charge of first-degree manslaughter, which was added by the convening grand jury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Lexington police said Snelling hid her dead infant, found wrapped in a towel, inside a black trash bag in a closet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Her attorney, Brandon Marshall, has not responded to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">According to a press release from the city of Lexington, the Kentucky Medical Examiner\u2019s Office determined \u201cInfant Snelling was born alive and his cause of death to be asphyxia by undetermined means.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Snelling was previously released on $100,000 bond, according to court documents shared with NBC News. The documents say she was placed on house arrest at her parents\u2019 home in Jefferson City, Tennessee, about 200 miles from where she was arrested in Kentucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Snelling told officers that she had tried to conceal the evidence of giving birth from her roommates, according to a police citation. Snelling pleaded not guilty to charges of abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Preliminary autopsy reports for the child were \u201cinconclusive\u201d at the time of Snelling\u2019s first arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Snelling has withdrawn from school and is no longer on the STUNT team, according to NBC affiliate WLEX. Her arraignment is set for April 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/kentucky-student-athlete-indicted-manslaughter-babys-death-closet-rcna263182\">Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former University of Kentucky student-athlete has been indicted on a first-degree manslaughter charge in connection with the death of her newborn, whose body was found inside a trash bag in a closet last year, officials said. Snelling, 22, was indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday on several charges related to the August 2025 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":54619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[5171,1247,3437,24054,27616],"class_list":["post-54618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-athletes","tag-death","tag-manslaughter","tag-newborns","tag-university-of-kentucky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54620,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54618\/revisions\/54620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}