SHENYANG - A court in Northeast China's Liaoning province has sentenced a man to death for murdering his four family members and one tenant last June, a local court spokesman said Friday.

Xiao Guang, a 31-year-old resident of Liaozhong county, murdered his eight-year-old daughter, wife, and his parents with a pickaxe, and he also killed a female tenant and injured another person in the rental housing unit he managed after he had a few drinks around midnight on June 9, a spokesman with the Shenyang Municipal Intermediate People's Court said.

Following the murders, Xiao tried to set himself on fire but was rescued by the firefighters and later placed under arrest, the spokesman said.

Xiao committed the act as a result of heavy debt, he said.

His crimes of intentional homicide and arson qualified him for the death penalty, the court said in the verdict.