For more than a year, the public knew the name of the young woman charged in the death of her newborn son.

His family says too few people knew his.

Kade.

That was the name relatives repeated inside a Kentucky courtroom as Laken Snelling, the former University of Kentucky stunt cheerleader who admitted killing her newborn after secretly giving birth in an off-campus home, learned how long she would spend in prison.

The hearing was about punishment.

But for Kade’s paternal family, it was also about recognition.

They spoke about the grandson they never got to raise.

The first birthday they marked at a grave instead of around a cake.

The clothes they selected for his burial instead of his childhood.

The first steps, first words, holidays, hugs, laughter, and ordinary family moments they said were taken away before they ever had a chance to happen.

Snelling, now 22, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after previously pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant.

According to the supplied Law&Crime transcript, the judge ordered the sentences to run concurrently, leaving Snelling with a total prison term of 10 years.

The sentencing closed a case that began on August 27, 2025, inside the off-campus Lexington residence Snelling shared with other students.

Police were called around 10:30 that morning after roommates entered Snelling’s room and found a newborn boy wrapped in a towel, placed inside a trash bag, and hidden in a closet.

The baby was dead.

Snelling was not initially inside the home.

When she returned, police said she acknowledged that she had given birth to the child.

She was 21 at the time.

She attended the University of Kentucky and belonged to its stunt cheerleading team.

Video cited in the source showed her performing with the team months earlier while pregnant.

According to court records described in the transcript, Snelling had not publicly disclosed the pregnancy.

She told police she gave birth around 4 a.m.

What happened in the moments afterward became central to the criminal case.

Snelling initially told police she did not believe the newborn was breathing or alive.

But hospital records later described in court documents reportedly reflected a different statement.

She allegedly told medical personnel that the baby had displayed some movement and made a whimper, leading her to believe he may have been alive.

That discrepancy became significant.

The case would ultimately move beyond concealment of a birth and into a manslaughter prosecution.

The source says Snelling told investigators that after delivery, she lay on the floor beside the baby during what she described as a moment of comfort.

She then wrapped him tightly.

Later, she put his body inside a towel and trash bag and placed him in the closet.

Police said she cleaned blood using paper towels and put the placenta inside a resealable plastic bag.

She then left the residence.

She reportedly said she intended to attend class but did not go in.

Instead, according to the transcript, she ordered McDonald’s through the company’s app.

Her roommates had heard noises during the night.

One reportedly heard something fall.

Another heard sounds for roughly an hour.

After Snelling left that morning, they went into her room.

That was when they discovered the newborn.

The child who would later be identified by his paternal family as Kade.

The family’s emphasis on his name became one of the most powerful themes of the sentencing hearing.

One relative told the court that for more than a year, media stories had repeatedly named Snelling while failing to center the name of the person whose life had ended.

Kade’s family wanted that corrected.

They wanted him understood not as an unnamed newborn in a criminal case but as a child with relatives who say they would have loved and raised him.

The supplied transcript begins with that plea, with a grandparent asking the court to treat the circumstances of Kade’s death with the utmost seriousness and to remember that his life mattered independently of the defendant’s story.

By the time of sentencing, there was no longer a dispute over whether Snelling had criminal responsibility for his death.

She had pleaded guilty.

During her earlier plea hearing, Snelling addressed the court directly.

She said she was under severe emotional distress when the baby arrived unexpectedly.

Then the judge asked her what she meant when she said that instead of helping him, she had ended his life.

Snelling answered directly.

She said she deprived him of oxygen.

That admission became the factual foundation for the manslaughter plea.

She also acknowledged placing towels associated with the incident into a plastic bag when questioned about tampering with physical evidence.

The guilty plea substantially changed the posture of the case.

The sentencing was not about determining whether Snelling had committed the crimes.

It was about deciding the consequences.

Her attorneys told the court she was deeply sorry.

But Snelling herself did not make a lengthy statement at the sentencing hearing.

Her lawyers explained that intense media attention had influenced that decision.

They also said supporters had written letters on Snelling’s behalf but that the defense chose not to submit them because they feared public backlash against the people who had written them.

That left much of the hearing’s emotional weight with Kade’s paternal relatives.

His father, identified in the transcript as Isaiah, spoke first.

His remarks were subdued.

He did not ask the court for vengeance.

He said he did not wish anything worse on Snelling.

But he made clear that the death had left his family with pain and unanswered questions that could not be undone by a sentence.

That restraint was striking.

His son was dead.

He had apparently not known about the pregnancy before the baby’s death.

And yet he did not use his courtroom statement to demand cruelty in return.

Instead, he described a reality his family could not change.

Then Kade’s grandmother approached the microphone.

Her statement transformed the hearing from a discussion of criminal statutes into a description of an entire life that never happened.

She described Kade as a healthy and beautiful baby boy who barely had time to enter the world before his future was taken from him.

She imagined birthdays.

Holidays.

First steps.

First words.

Hugs.

Kisses.

Laughter.

The ordinary milestones grandparents usually take for granted.

Her grief came from the fact that none of those memories would ever exist.

Instead of remembering Kade growing up, the family had only moments surrounding his death and burial.

The grandmother told the court that grief does not disappear simply because time passes.

It enters family gatherings.

Quiet moments.

Future celebrations where somebody will always be missing.

She said Kade could not speak for himself.

Could not describe what happened.

Could not ask for justice.

That, she explained, was why she was standing there.

She wanted accountability to remain central to sentencing.

No punishment could restore Kade’s life.

But the impossibility of bringing him back did not make accountability meaningless.

Another grandparent described what the family had been forced to experience in place of the memories they expected.

Picking out burial clothes.

Giving Kade a final kiss.

Visiting his grave.

Marking his first birthday with a memorial instead of a celebration.

The family’s grief, she said, extended beyond Kade himself.

She worried about what the loss would ultimately do to her son, Kade’s father, as he carried the knowledge into his own future relationships and any family he might someday build.

That is one of the less visible consequences of infant homicide.

The death occurs once.

The absence repeats.

Every milestone becomes a reminder of the one child who never reached it.

Kade’s aunt then told the court something else that deepened the family’s anger.

They would have taken the baby.

She said there were no diapers.

No wipes.

No bottles.

No pacifiers.

No clothing prepared for him.

No prenatal care.

No apparent plan to keep him.

But if the paternal family had known, she said, they would have accepted Kade without hesitation and allowed Snelling to continue her life.

Whether Snelling believed she had such an option, understood it, feared disclosure, or felt unable to act remains part of the unanswered psychological story surrounding the case.

But from the family’s perspective, one fact dominates.

They were never given the choice.

They did not know Kade existed until after he was dead.

That became part of their grief.

They had not merely lost a child.

They had lost the chance to protect one.

The aunt told the court that Kade’s life existed and mattered.

She rejected the idea that his short time alive made the loss less serious.

She said the family would continue caring for his grave as proof that he was loved, even though they were denied the chance to show that love while he lived.

Her statement also challenged the way the case had been discussed publicly.

For months, she said, people talked about Snelling.

People speculated about the father.

People debated motive.

But the person whose name mattered most was the baby.

Kade.

The courtroom remarks also addressed something that remains difficult to understand even after the guilty plea.

Why?

Why hide a pregnancy?

Why give birth alone?

Why fail to seek help?

Why kill a newborn who had paternal relatives willing to take him?

Why conceal the body and leave the apartment afterward?

The transcript does not provide a definitive motive.

Snelling said at her plea hearing that she had been under significant emotional distress.

The sentencing judge later acknowledged that Snelling was dealing with depression and anxiety and was receiving therapy and medication.

But the judge did not treat those circumstances as erasing responsibility.

The court emphasized that Snelling had been raised in what the judge described as a relatively stable home and had no significant prior felony history.

The judge also noted that Snelling reported no major substance-abuse issues.

Those factors might ordinarily support a more lenient sentence.

But this was not an ordinary offense.

The judge characterized the case as a crime of violence.

She emphasized that the victim was a baby who had done nothing except be born and breathe.

That framing appears to have controlled the sentencing outcome.

The judge described how Snelling’s choice had altered not only her own future but the lives of Kade’s paternal relatives.

Parents.

Grandparents.

Aunts.

A father who never got the chance to know his son alive.

The court also acknowledged the young defendant’s future.

Snelling was 22.

The judge told her she would still have much of her life ahead of her.

Kade’s family would also continue living.

But, the judge said, the hole created by his death would never disappear.

That contrast is unavoidable.

Snelling will eventually leave prison.

Kade will never leave the age he was when he died.

Under the sentence described in the transcript, Snelling received 10 years for first-degree manslaughter.

The judge imposed additional terms for abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant.

Those sentences were ordered to run concurrently rather than consecutively.

As a result, the total sentence remained 10 years.

She was remanded directly into custody to begin serving it.

The host noted that if she serves the full term, she would be approximately 32 when she leaves prison in 2036.

That detail has generated strong reactions because ten years can feel difficult to reconcile emotionally with the death of a newborn.

But sentencing is governed by statutes, plea agreements, eligibility rules, and judicial discretion rather than raw public outrage.

The transcript indicates Snelling pleaded guilty in line with a Commonwealth recommendation.

The judge also said probation was not available because of the violent nature of the offense.

The legal outcome therefore reflects the charges to which she pleaded, not every more severe charge the public might imagine could have been brought.

The case began with a first-degree manslaughter indictment rather than murder.

That distinction matters.

Manslaughter and murder involve different legal elements and different sentencing exposure.

The source does not provide enough detail to reconstruct every prosecutorial decision behind the plea agreement.

Any analysis of why prosecutors accepted manslaughter rather than pursuing a murder trial would therefore require additional court filings or official statements.

What is clear is that Snelling admitted ending Kade’s life by depriving him of oxygen.

She admitted conduct connected to concealing what happened afterward.

And she accepted a negotiated legal resolution that resulted in a decade in prison.

The emotional impact of the sentencing, however, came less from the number than from the victim statements.

Kade’s relatives repeatedly returned to the same idea.

He had a family.

That idea is simple.

In this case, it was devastating.

The relatives described a child who could have had people ready to hold him, feed him, raise him, celebrate birthdays, and build an entire life around his existence.

Instead, they first met him in death.

That reversal is at the core of their grief.

Grandparents normally meet a child and begin imagining the future.

Kade’s family encountered the future only as something missing.

No first birthday.

No first day of school.

No graduation.

No adult life.

No possibility of discovering who he would have become.

The aunt summarized that loss by insisting he was not garbage.

The wording directly confronts the way his body was found.

A newborn wrapped in a towel.

Inside a trash bag.

Hidden in a closet.

For the family, preserving his dignity required publicly separating the person from the way his remains were treated.

Kade was not the bag.

Not the closet.

Not evidence.

Not a headline.

He was their son, grandson, and nephew.

That distinction is one reason victim-impact statements can become so significant during sentencing.

Criminal cases naturally revolve around the accused.

Charges.

Motions.

Defense strategies.

Sentencing ranges.

Mental health.

Criminal history.

Rehabilitation.

But victim statements reverse the camera.

They ask what was lost.

Kade could never make that statement himself.

His family tried to make it for him.

The supplied transcript repeatedly returns to that concern, with relatives emphasizing that Kade deserved to have his name spoken, his life acknowledged, and his death treated as the loss of a full human future rather than a footnote to Snelling’s biography.

There is also a difficult broader context surrounding concealed pregnancy and newborn death cases.

They often trigger immediate questions about fear, denial, pregnancy concealment, access to support, mental-health crises, family pressure, and whether the person giving birth understood or considered alternatives.

Those questions can matter.

They cannot erase a guilty plea.

Nor can they be answered through speculation.

Snelling said she was in emotional distress.

The judge acknowledged later depression and anxiety.

But the source does not establish that she lacked legal capacity to understand her actions.

Her plea necessarily involved acknowledging criminal responsibility.

The safest conclusion is therefore the simplest one.

There may be psychological explanations still not publicly understood.

There is no explanation in the supplied material that changes the legal fact that Snelling admitted ending her newborn’s life.

The case also raises painful questions about secrecy.

Snelling was reportedly visibly active on the stunt cheerleading team during pregnancy.

Yet the transcript says she had apparently not told people around her she was expecting.

That means she maintained a private reality while continuing a demanding public routine.

How she managed that concealment, who suspected anything, whether she sought medical care elsewhere, and what she believed would happen when labor began are questions the transcript does not answer.

The aunt’s assertion that there was no prenatal care comes from the victim-impact statement.

The source does not independently document Snelling’s complete medical history.

That claim should therefore be understood as part of the family’s statement unless supported by additional medical records.

Likewise, the family’s belief that Kade could simply have been placed with them reflects what they would have wanted.

The transcript does not establish whether Snelling ever considered that option or understood what legal or personal consequences she believed disclosure would create.

Those unknowns may remain unanswered.

Kade’s death is not unknown.

The guilty plea resolved that part.

At the hearing, the judge returned responsibility directly to Snelling.

Whatever happened in her upbringing, whatever emotional distress existed, whatever fears surrounded the pregnancy, the judge told her that the decision was hers.

Choices create consequences.

This choice reshaped multiple lives.

That language is important because it avoids two extremes.

One is reducing Snelling to a monster with no context.

The other is allowing context to swallow accountability.

The sentencing judge did neither.

She acknowledged Snelling’s age.

No major prior felony record.

Mental-health treatment.

Low-risk status in some respects.

Then she emphasized the violence of the offense and the complete innocence of the victim.

That is sentencing in its most difficult form.

A court is not asked to decide whether a defendant has any redeeming characteristics.

It is asked how those characteristics should be weighed against the harm done.

Here, the harm was irreversible.

Kade’s paternal family will continue living with the consequences long after Snelling completes her prison term.

The judge said as much.

Snelling will have years ahead of her.

So will they.

But their years will include an absence she created.

That may be why the family’s statements were less focused on Snelling than observers might have expected.

They focused on Kade.

His father did not demand vengeance.

His grandparents spoke about missing milestones.

His aunt spoke about his dignity and the family’s willingness to raise him.

They were not asking the court to understand only what was done.

They wanted the court to understand who it was done to.

That is a subtle but important difference.

Cases involving newborn victims can become abstract quickly.

Words like “infant,” “fetus,” “birth concealment,” “manslaughter,” and “postpartum” can create emotional distance.

The family rejected that distance.

They gave the child a name.

They described his grave.

They imagined the birthdays.

They talked about the clothes they buried him in.

They made the absence physical.

That is what Kade’s sentencing hearing became.

Not just the day Laken Snelling received 10 years.

The day his paternal family finally had a courtroom where they could say publicly that he had been wanted.

Loved.

Missed.

And remembered.

The final sentence cannot restore him.

It cannot give Isaiah the experience of raising his son.

It cannot give grandparents the first steps they imagined.

It cannot replace a first birthday memorial with a birthday party.

It cannot create the memories that never happened.

The judge acknowledged that.

The family acknowledged it too.

Justice in cases like this is necessarily incomplete.

Prison punishes.

It does not reverse death.

That is why the name matters.

Kade.

The supplied transcript closes with Snelling being taken into Kentucky custody to begin serving the 10-year sentence.

But the most lasting words from the hearing were not the number of years.

They came from the people who said Kade’s life should not be reduced because it was brief.

He was born.

He breathed.

He had a family.

And for them, that is enough to make the future he lost impossible to measure.