[10] A former soldier, with the US-trained special forces units of the Honduran military, asserted that Cáceres' name was on their hitlist for months prior to her assassination.

Two had been trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA, at the former School of the Americas (SOA), now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC.

For example, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the Netherlands Development Finance Institution (FMO) and the Finnfund pursued a strategy with shareholders, executives, managers, and employees of the Honduran company Desarrollos Energeticos SA (DESA), private security companies working for DESA, public officials and State security agencies "to control, neutralize and eliminate any opposition".

Twelve land defenders were killed in Honduras in 2014, according to research by Global Witness, making it the most dangerous country in the world, relative to its size, for activists protecting forests and rivers.

In July 2021, Roberto David Castillo, the former president of DESA, was found guilty of being a co-conspirator in her murder, and sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison.

Her mother Austra Bertha Flores Lopez was a role model of humanitarianism: She was a midwife, assisting in thousands of natural births in the Honduran countryside,[13] and social activist who took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador.

[18] She led campaigns on a wide variety of issues, including protesting illegal logging, plantation owners, and the presence of US military bases on Lenca land.

[23] In 2006, a group of indigenous Lenca people from Río Blanco asked Cáceres to investigate the recent arrival of construction equipment in their area.

[11] From 2013, Cáceres led COPINH and the local community in a year-long protest at the construction site to prevent the companies from accessing the land.

[11] On 15 July 2013, the Honduran military opened fire on the protesters, killing one member of COPINH, Tomás García, and injuring three others, including his 17-year-old son, Alan.

Cáceres singled out Hillary Clinton for her involvement in legitimizing the 2009 Honduran coup d'état:"The return of the president, Mel Zelaya, became a secondary issue.

[33] The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACH) included "Bertha Cáceres" (sic) on its 28 June 2009 list of people under threat during the 2009 Honduran coup d'état.

[34] The following day the IACH issued so-called "precautionary measures (MC 196-09)" in defense of her and other activists, while acknowledging reports that military forces had surrounded her home.

[35]During the campaign against the dam, Cáceres and other organizers were frequently intimidated by the military; on one occasion they were stopped and their vehicle was searched while traveling to Rio Blanco.

Cáceres claimed that during this search, a gun was planted in the vehicle; the organisers were subsequently arrested on weapons charges and detained overnight in jail.

[37] Court records from 2014 publicized in May 2016 showed that "the government and DESA repeatedly sought to tar Caceres and her colleagues as violent anarchists bent on terrorizing the population through their protests, [...] usurpation, coercion and continued damage and even attempting to undermine the democratic order.

[50] Other expressions of support came from American actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio, Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein, Amnesty International, Puerto Rican singer René Pérez of Calle 13, former Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba, Oxfam, the Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau, U.S.

[65] Attack survivor and sole witness Castro later said he was "paraded through ministries and court houses, ordered to tell his story over and over again,[...] prevented from leaving the country for a month and effectively treated as a suspect [...].

"[39] In a 5 March press conference, Cáceres' four children: Olivia, Berta, Laura, and Salvador, expressed their lack of confidence in the Honduran government investigation.

[66] On 6 March 2016, President Hernández asked UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Zeid bin Ra'ad Al-Hussein to assist in the investigation into Cáceres' death.

Amnesty condemned "the Honduran government's absolute lack of willingness to protect human rights defenders in the country" and noted that the Honduran authorities had failed "to follow the most basic lines of investigation, including the fact that Berta had been receiving serious death threats related to her human rights work for a very long time.

"[67] One month after Cáceres' death, Honduran authorities announced that on 13 March they had searched DESA's offices and taken testimonies from the company's employees.

[70][71] In November 2017, a team of international legal experts (GAIPE) released a report detailing their findings, which establish "the willful negligence by financial institutions" as for example the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) and the Finnfund.

"[2] In March 2018, Honduran authorities arrested a former military intelligence officer David Castillo, accused of masterminding Cáceres' murder.

On 6 July 2021 David Castillo, former president of the hydroelectric corporation DESA, was found guilty of plotting the assassination of Berta Cáceres by the Honduran Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling.