I'm glad that the students are scared. In this case, being scared might make them think more about their personal safety. Hopefully by exercising caution - locking their apartment doors, locking their car doors, and only walking in groups from place to place will prevent another young woman from being kidnapped, raped, or killed.
Some years ago, a good friend of ours, a sheriff deputy with the Sacramento Sheriffs Dept., was making the rounds of college campuses teaching safety and self-protection. Our daughter attended one of his lectures and got a lot of good tips on self-protection. To this day, her car is locked up tight whenever she goes anywhere. If I'm a passenger, I have to ask her to unlock the passenger window for me.