A man in Zhangye city, Gansu province, has been sentenced to death by a local court after being convicted of killing his parents so he could inherit their accident insurance compensation, local media reported.

Shen Xueyong, a 28-year-old villager in Jingan village, Ganzhou district in Zhangye, received the penalty from the Intermediate People's Court in Zhangye for murdering both of his parents on Nov 29, the Lanzhou Morning News reported on Tuesday.

According to local police, Shen killed his parents, both aged 58, with a stick near a pigsty on March 25 after a quarrel with them. He later threw their bodies under a bridge, according to an earlier report by the newspaper. His parents’ bodies were discovered by a villager the next day and the villager notified police.

Before the killing, Shen purchased 14 insurance packages for his parents and he was the beneficiary of all of them, which could have resulted in Shen receiving compensation of 600,000 yuan ($96,300), according to the report.

Shen denied he killed his parents for the insurance in the trial.

But the court found he had plotted the death of his parents.

The death penalty will go through a final review before the country's top court before being implemented.