She wasn't leaving work. She was travelling to the hardware store at 5:15pm (by which time it was already dark). Of course, in your world it may make perfect sense that adults not be able to walk the streets of their small, otherwise safe town as soon as the sun sets. In the realm I inhabit, called 'reality', there is a general acceptance that citizens should have an expectation that they not have to travel in packs or barricade themselves in their homes at night for safety, but that they should be able to carry the means of ensuring their personal safety while they lawfully do their grocery shopping on a late winter afternoon.. And, of course, this assumes that all crimes occur after dark.
Sorry, but i have a problem accepting that this isn't some kind of performance art disguised as forum posting. First, let's skip the implicit accusal in your post that victims of horrible crime generally found themselves to blame because they weren't acting smart ('well, if she was going to go there at that time of night, she should have expected to be raped!').
Secondly, you apparently are happy that as long as the odds of being a victim are low, then people should be quite happy to disarm themselves and accept that if they are the ones unlucky enough to be on the receiving end, then that's just their bad luck. After all, in a country of 175 million women, if only 0.01% suffer from a horrendous incident, then those 17,500 women should just accept a good gang-raping, and they shouldn't complain about being defenseless because the chances of it happening to them were actually pretty low! Certainly they were low enough to justify ensuring that the unlucky women it happened to had no way in which to resist.
I'm very sad to say that the impression I get from your post is that you think you are coming at this from a position of moral authority in that you want to make society safe, but your attitude shows an utter scorn and disregard for the safety of the actual individuals who make up that society, particularly in cases where, according to your own murky guidelines, they have not acted 'smart' enough for you. Your attitude is disgusting and personally offensive to anyone who has ever suffered from a violent crime.
I hope all women are reading this - Mudcat's advice if you are a woman - don't go grocery shopping at your neighbourhood strip mall in your small, safe town if the sun has set. If something bad happens to you, it's your own fault for not acting 'smart'. Also, woe betide you if you wish you had the means to protect yourself - then you're being insulting! To someone. Somehow.
EDITED TO ADD: Oh, and those of you who aren't lucky enough to live in a generally safe area, especially those of you who live in areas with high crime rates - did you know if you were smart, you could reduce your chances of being a victim to practically zero? That's right - high rates of violent crime in your neighbourhood are probably the result of victims acting stupidly, nothing more. If people weren't so stupid in your area, there wouldn't be so much crime!
One of the funnier Big Bang Theory episodes has Penny take Leonard to a shooting range, and he says "He knows how to handle a gat. He's done a lot of Grand Theft Auto gaming." Bang! Bullet meets foot! 
