At the time of her death, Botha – along with John Block and Alvin Botes – was facing criminal charges in connection with her relationship to a private company, Trifecta Investment Holdings.
[6] In August 2011, the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interests found Botha guilty of breaching the parliamentary rules for failing to disclose the benefits she had received from Trifecta.
[8] The National Prosecuting Authority alleged that Botha, Block, and Botes had been given kickbacks in exchange for encouraging the provincial government to sign leases with Trifecta at grossly inflated rates.
[10] The trial was ongoing when Botha died in December 2014, but Block was later found guilty of corruption and money laundering, as was Trifecta's former chief executive, Christo Scholtz;[11] Botes was acquitted.
[9] In November 2014, Botha's doctor told the Northern Cape High Court that she was terminally ill.[10] She was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma, which spread to her brain, and she died on 28 December 2014 in a hospital in Kimberley.
[4][12] After a series of appeals, the dispute was heard in the Constitutional Court, which in March 2020 decided in favour of the state, ruling that the estate should forfeit the full value of the Trifecta-funded renovations.