In August 2012, Gu was convicted of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood and was given a suspended death sentence, later commuted to life imprisonment in December 2015.

But Gu claimed that she first met Bo in 1984 on her field trip looking into environmental art in Jin County, Liaoning, where he was the Communist Party secretary.

"[9] In March 2012, Gu became embroiled in a national scandal after her husband's deputy, Wang Lijun, sought refuge at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu.

[8][11] Following the Wang Lijun incident and Bo's removal from key Communist Party posts, Gu was placed under investigation for Heywood's death.

She claimed that her actions were due to a "mental breakdown" after her son had been threatened by Heywood, and stated that she would "accept and calmly face any sentence".

[1][2] After the media published footage of the trial, claims that the woman shown in court was not in fact Gu, but a body double, quickly became popular on the Chinese Internet.

The practice of rich people paying others to stand trial and receive punishment in their place, called ding zui, is relatively widespread in China.

[21] Following the verdict, the United Kingdom announced that it welcomed the investigation, and said that they "consistently made clear to the Chinese authorities that we wanted to see the trials in this case conform to international human rights standards and for the death penalty not to be applied.

"[1][3] BBC News commented that "informed observers see the fingerprints of the Communist Party of China all over this outcome", stating that the trial's conclusion was "all too neat and uncannily suited to one particular agenda", that of limiting the scandal's damage.

[24] An academic close to the Bo family said Wang Lijun had written two letters to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) which accused Gu of moving several hundred million dollars out of the country.