There's no reason to be afraid. The trail is far safer than most of the rest of the country. Meredeth's case is awful, but there's an average of around 44 murders a day in the US (there are actually more than that, but in many areas administrations rig the statistics to make it appear that they're doing a good job). Far more still die to car crashes, and even more still die after having spent most of thier lives wishing they could do something as awe inspiring as thru-hike, but never doing it.
Sensational news stories such as Merideth's shock us, as they should. But what's even more shocking are how frequent such crimes are.
To females (this post began as a response to Cindy's thread in the female forum, but I felt that this forum would be a more appropiate place to post it) : As a female you are statistically much safer in a group of strangers than a male is.
"In 2004, 1,807 females in the United States were murdered by males in cases in which a single offender killed a single victim. In more than nine in ten of these cases (92 percent), the victim was murdered by someone she knew."
Most victims and perpetrators in homicides are male
Male offender/Male victim 65.3%
Male offender/Female victim 22.7%
Female offender/Male victim 9.6%
Female offender/Female victim 2.4%
There's always a reason to be careful, but in general the trail is a safe place. A Million people a year use the AT, and in the last two decades only a few have been murdered. For every 100,000 americans, around 5.5 are murdered every year. There's no way to match those two statistics accurately to each other, but they do give the feel that the AT is a far safer place than much of America as far as crime is concerned. Factor in the lack of traffic deaths on the AT, and the health benifits of hiking, and spending time on the AT is really one of the safest, healthiest things you can do for yourself.