She is not going to win anything by attempting to reason with, or show virtue to, people who vehemently hate her no matter what she does. They will continue to make shit up and they will continue to hate her. There is no winning. I'd say she probably should've just ignored it.
If the 'death threats' and actual family-level harassment shit is at all real in any capacity - and something's telling me it probably isn't - then the person doing it is extremely fucking gay. Just call the guy a retarded fag and move on, Jesus.