We often try to reconcile the bad things that happen to other people by trying to make them "The Other". Calamities that befall others are explained away by suggesting that the victim brought the menace onto themselves. When someone with a plain life dies in a grisly manner, the press will often look for something- anything- that differentiates the victim from the every day Citizens who read or view their reports.
Thus did Elizabeth Short's life become muddied. They claimed she was a prostitute (she wasn't). They tried to say she was a loose woman who loved thrills (Not really). They said she was a con artist (Possibly). The truth was less interesting.
Beth Short wasn't too different from other young girls her age. While the press tried to make her appear like a scheming tramp who might have gotten what she deserved, she actually led quite a plain life. She appeared to be merely trying to find a nice young man to settle down and raise a family with. Her family life may have been a bit more itinerant than was normal at the time, but had she not died in such a horrific way, nobody would have thought her to be out of the ordinary.
When her murderer began taunting the people of Los Angeles with terrifying missives, he slandered her with ridiculous claims and suggested that she deserved to be murdered. Sadly, the press would take these accusations and run with them, turning the public against her. While most decent people believed that nobody deserved the brutality she suffered, there was always a suspicion that maybe she wasn't entirely innocent after all; a belief that victimized her memory to this day.
