Family Preparing Funeral for Missing Waitress

Sept. 29, 2008— -- Family and friends hoping to bring home alive a missing Alabama waitress are now making funeral arrangements, saying they're sure the body found Saturday in a Tennessee lake is hers.

Though the medical examiner in Knoxville has not officially made a positive identification, police say the body found matches the description of Jennifer Hampton, 21, of Florence, Ala.

"We do not have … a missing person that matches that description other than Miss Hampton," Knoxville Public Information Officer Darrell DeBusk said today.

Attorney Eddie Daniel who has been acting as a spokesman for the Hampton family told ABCNews.com, "They're just good, hardworking folks that never imagined this would happen."

Hampton was last seen outside her room at the Knoxville Days Inn Sept. 19 by a co-worker who traveled with her to Knoxville to set up a new branch of the Mama Blues Southern Café, an Alabama-based buffet restaurant where they worked.

Though police had said there were signs of a struggle in the room, her family held out hope she would be found safely, Daniel said. That hope was shattered Saturday morning when a fisherman found the body of a young, white female in the Melton Hill Lake, about five miles from the Days Inn.

Mama Blues owner Steve Barnhill has told ABCNews.com that the sheets were ripped off the hotel-room bed and that Hampton had told a boyfriend that night that she was concerned about two men outside her room.

DeBusk would not comment on the evidence found in Hampton's hotel room, but said an autopsy would yield more clues into her death.

A report from the medical examiner, he said, is due either late today or early Tuesday, pending examination of Hampton's medical records, which were being sent from Alabama.

Daniel, who was hired by the family last week and has rarely left their side since, said Hampton's entire family, including her twin sister, were down in Tennessee and are devastated at the police findings.

"We have the utmost confidence in the Knoxville, Tenn., police department and the job they have done," he said.