Missing in Knoxville, TN: Jennifer Lee Hampton
Posted at 12:10 PM Sep 22, 2008
Investigators in Knoxville, TN are trying to find a young Alabama woman who vanished last Friday while staying at a local Days Inn.
Twenty-one-year-old Jennifer Lee Hampton, from Florence, Alabama, was last seen around 9 on Friday night. Sadly, Knoxville police believe they have evidence that something bad happened to Jennifer.
A search is going on today in and around Turkey Creek and Lovell Road in Knoxville, near the junction of Interstates 75 and 40. [View the Days Inn location here, on Google's Street View.]
Hampton was employed by a chain restaurant, Mama Blues. A new location is opening on Kingston Pike and Jennifer was there to assist in the training of new employees. She checked into her room at the Days Inn on Thursday, September 18, and co-workers took three other rooms in the same establishment.
Cops have told local media that they don't believe Jennifer left her room Friday evening. Since she's missing, we can probably assume they mean she didn't leave of her own volition. By Saturday, Jennifer's fellow employees knew that something was wrong and they reported her missing.
The 5'3", 110 lb. brunette posted more photos of family than of herself on her MySpace. The photos Jennifer did place in her album there showed a young woman who probably looked younger than her years in person, especially since she's also been described as having a thin build.
Her profile quote read, "life is too short to hold grudges so love the people that treat you right an ignore the people that dont..."
If you examine the Street View of the location from which Jennifer Lee Hampton disappeared, you can see there's a large truck stop just down the street from the Days Inn. I lived in Knoxville for 4 years, and know the area -- it's changed a little since the early 90s, but it was always busy, due to the Interstates.
My point in mentioning this is that Jennifer and her Mama Blues co-workers were staying at a perfectly decent hotel in an area that draws a huge variety of transient traffic every day -- truckers going north to south on 75 and east to west on 40, just to name the most common traffic at that location.
The odds are that eventually, one innocent person passing through such a location might end up running into someone else passing through who has anything but innocent drives or motivations.
Normally I might withhold such speculation, but police have already said that they believe Jennifer Lee Hampton was the victim of foul play. If so, they may have a tall order ahead of them, if all of Hampton's co-workers check out. They will have to trawl through receipts and security tapes from the hotel, the nearby truck stop and any other restaurant or customer-oriented business in the area.
If you were in the area on Friday night or on Saturday and think you have any information that might help, call the Knoxville Police Department at 865-215-7014.
[Knoxville News Sentinel and WATE.com.]
Comments
I travel to Knoxville quiet frequently with my job and I am from the Shoals area where Jennifer is from. This poor girl coming up missing just reminds me that we as young women need to pay attention to our surroundings and to people we may meet and " chit chat " with at our hotels. No matter what hotel you are in, this could still have happened. I know I am friendly to everyone I meet as long as they stay within the friendliness bounderies. It was probably an admirer who knew from her stay that she was far away from home, and took advantage of the situation. I will now travel more cautiously. I will continue to pray for her and the family EVERYDAY till she is found
Posted 09/23/2008 at 03:15:51 PM09-26-2008, 10:00am. I am not sure if it is related, however, today I noticed an officer with a dog both wearing "recovery" uniforms were searching along Fox road. If you leave the hotel and head toward Turkey creek, continue straight which will take you to Loudon lake and when you cross over the RR tracks, it turns to the left and will take you along the river and RR tracks. This is near the area they were searching today.
Posted 09/26/2008 at 10:42:46 AMI wonder if the employees with Jennifer all ate together or if they just all ate when they felt like it. What I'm wondering is if Jennifer might have gone over to the truck stop alone for a meal or a snack. If so, she may have talked to someone who then followed her outside and harmed her. Or someone could have just watched her and waited for her to leave and then followed her out. I hope they have good cameras all over the place so that there is a chance of LE seeing what actually happened.
It seems that there are monsters around every corner these days. I hope they find this one and he pays a high price for murdering this innocent young girl who was just away from home doing her job. Bless her family as I know this is the nightmare that they never dreamed would happen in their family. But it did. Such a horrible thing.
Posted 09/28/2008 at 11:58:11 PMI heard they found a body in the Melton pk area, if this is her then someone in this area had to know this park. A person that was just driving through here would NOT have known this area. I'm so sad for this family and very disturbed for I live on Lovell rd and worry for my children.
The family will be in our prayers.
Posted 09/29/2008 at 09:33:42 AMI am so torn about this terrible tragedy in Knoxville. But, I have a few questions SOMEONE needs to answer. Did anyone receive the reward money? I know for a fact that the person that should have received it, didn't. This person was going to give a portion to the family of the victim. The reward money was put up by the OWNER OF THE RESTURANT. What is going on. Somebody please help me in this. I pray every single day for the family of Jennifer Hampton. Is this breaking the law?
Posted 10/16/2008 at 11:47:04 PMOur justice system needs to know about this. This person helped bring closure to a already terrible act. Thank God her body was recovered. Thankyou for reading and caring.