911 caller said baby found dead in Lexington was ‘cold to the touch’
The person who called Lexington police last month to report finding a dead baby in a closet near downtown Lexington told dispatchers the baby was “cold to the touch.”
The detail marks the first indication that some time passed between the baby’s death and the Aug 27 call to 911. It was included in heavily redacted call dispatch records obtained by the Herald-Leader on Monday through the Kentucky Open Records Act.
The caller’s name was redacted in the records.
Police found the baby soon after the call, placed around 10:35 a.m. The baby was wrapped in a towel, alongside cleaning items, in a trash bag in the closet of a home in the 400 block of Park Ave.
The baby’s mother, 21-year-old Laken Snelling, a then-student-athlete at the University of Kentucky, was charged with concealing a birth, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse.
During an interview with police, Snelling “admitted to giving birth” and to “concealing the birth by cleaning any evidence, placing all cleaning items used inside a black trash bag, including the infant, who was wrapped in a towel.”
The initial coroner’s report, released Sept. 3, confirmed the baby was a boy. The report could not determine the cause or manner of death, and further testing is needed to determine those details, said Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn.
The report did not include the baby’s gestational age.
Ginn and Lexington police have declined to answer questions about the case, citing an ongoing investigation.
Snelling is originally from White Pine, Tenn. She was a senior at UK and was a member of the university’s STUNT team, a relatively new varsity sport that focuses on the technical and athletic aspects of cheerleading.
Snelling’s next court date is scheduled for Sept. 26.
This story was originally published September 15, 2025 at 7:46 PM.
