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.

If the body is positively identified as Hampton, Daniel said, the family would like to hold a funeral Friday or Saturday pending the release of the body from the medical examiner's office.

Hampton, who had been voted homecoming queen by the student body during her senior year at Waterloo High School, was a quiet girl who surrounded herself with friends, high school principal Ryan Harrison said.

Though Hampton was not an athlete, Harrison said he remembered seeing her at most football and basketball games, cheering on her school's teams.

A participant in the school plays, she liked history. Harrison said her former teacher, now the school's assistant principal, always had good things to say about her when she took his class.

The school is very small, graduating only about 30 seniors a year. The students all know each other, Harrison said, making Hampton's death that much harder to accept.

"We've had some students come and talk to me" and the school counselor, Harrison said.

On Friday night, hours before the body was found in Tennessee, the school held a fundraiser for her family, collecting more than $700 for their expenses.

Students from Hampton's 2007 graduating class came back for the night's football game and released balloons into the air in her honor.

"Some of the students tied messages to the balloons," Harrison said, "saying 'I hope you're OK. We love you.'"